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THE 


BLACK AND GRAY PRINCE 


BY 

LAURIE LORING 

AND OTHER STORIES BY FAMOUS AUTHORS 



FULL V ILL USTRA TED 


BOSTON 

D . L O T H R O P A N D CO M P A N Y 

32 FRANKLIN STREET 





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j/cLn-x-enne Gr 4- 



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THE 

BLACK AND THE GRAY PRINCE. 


I. 


“ T T ALLOO, Blackie ! Why didn’t you get up 
JL A time enough to wash this morning ? ” 

The mulatto sprang up the Academy steps without 
a word ; yet there was an ominous light in the large 
black eyes. 

“ Better let the Black Prince alone, Grayson. He 
won’t stand your impudence forever.” 

“ Let him go where he belongs, then.” 

“ You make a tremendous fuss about nothing. 
Suppose he did beat in the race last night, there’s 
no need of being so spiteful. Let him be Number 
One. Who cares ? ” 

“ You are too lazy to breathe, Nat.” 


T\ 


The Black and the Gray Prince, 

“ Thank you. The Gray Prince is complimentary, 
this morning.” 

The Gray Prince scowled. “To think his name 
should be Prince, too ! ” 

“It becomes him well,” answered Nat Stedman, 
stretching himself upon the grass, while his eyes 
twinkled mischievously, as he watched his friend. 
Prince Grayson, impatiently tossing the pebbles at 
his feet into the pond not far away. At last, seizing 
a large stone, he threw it into the water, exclaiming, 
spitefully, — 

“ I’d like to pitch Prince Blackwell into the pond 
— like that!” 

“ You’d better try it.” 

“ Perhaps you think I couldn’t do it ? ” 

“ Just so.” 

“ You think he’s smart, I do believe, just because 
he’s a nigger,” sneered Grayson. 

“ Nigger or not, he’s smart as a steel-trap.” 

“ New brooms always sweep clean.” 

“ That’s a fact. The old Academy never looked 
half so well as since our Black Prince has had the 
care of it.” 

“ Well, I • wouldn’t leave old friends quite so 
suddenly.” 

“ Don’t intend to leave old or new, as long as they 
behave themselves.” 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

“ Well, what have I done ? YouVe been as cold 
as an iceberg all the week.” 

“ You called me lazy, but I’d rather be lazy than 
mean, any time.” 

“ Have I been mean ? Haven’t I treated you well 
enough ? ” 

“ Y don’t complain ; but just tell a fellow why you 
pick upon Blackwell the whole time.” 

“ I wish to take him down a peg.” 

“ Why ? ” 

“ He feels too big altogether.” 

“ He fits his clothes well,” said Nat, with provoking 
coolness. 

“ Come — I’m in earnest.” 

‘‘ So am I.” 

“ Nat Stedman, I’ve a great mind to thrash you.” 

“ I’m willing.” 

“I wish you’d get downright mad once, and be 
done with this everlasting coolness and indifference.’’ 

Nat laughed heartily, as he answered, — 

** You, Grayson, are such a fire-cracker, some of us 
need to cultivate this coolness to preserve the peace 
of society. 

“ Peace or no peace, I’m bound to put down that 
little upstart.” 

“ How.?” 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

“ He thinks more of that black suit of clothes than 
anything, and if I could just give him a good sous* 
ing, wouldn’t it be splendid ? ” 

“ Splendid ? It would be the perfection of mean- 
ness. Grayson, he has no father ; and do you know 
how poor his mother is ? She does our washing now \ 
and mother said she was very anxious for Prince to 
get a good education ; so she works hard to keep him 
in the school here. I shouldn’t wonder if that was 
the only decent suit of clothes he had, and that’s why 
he’s so careful of them.” 

Nat half rose in his earnestness, but sunk back 
again as he read the expression of his friend’s face. 

“ Better and better ! His mother’s a washerwo- 
man, and he only one suit of clothes ! Hurrah ! ” 

“What on earth do you find amusing in that?” 
asked Nat, eyeing his friend a little anxiously. 

“ I supposed he was as poor as a church mouse, 
but didn’t know that his mother took in washing. I 
shall tell the boys what an aristocratic fellow we have 
among us ; and if I should accidentally give him a 
ducking to-morrow morning, perhaps you don’t see he 
can’t be present at declamation? Then he’ll get a 
demeiit instead of merit mark. /, at least, remember 
that last Saturday Mr. Frost gave him tv'o merit 
marks, while I received but one.” 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

Nat sprang to his feet. He answered, earnestly, 
“ril never speak to you again as long as I live, if 
you are mean enough to take such an advantage of 
the information I gave you.” 

“ O, yes you will j for you never stay mad more 
than a minute.” 

Nat turned and walked away. Grayson called to 
him, but his calls were unheeded. Just then a num- 
ber of boys rushed dowm the Academy steps with 
shouts and cries, such as schoolboys only can utter. 

Amid the Babel of tongues Nat could distinguish 
clearly only these : — 

“ Three cheers for the Black Prince ! Hurrah ! 
Aunt Milly’s wood-pile ! The Black Prince forever ! 
Three cheers for the saw-horse ! ” 

As they came nearer, Nat put both hands over his 
ears, and ran in mock alarm. With redoubled noise 
they sprang after him, and just as Gus Bickford, the 
foremost boy, was about to lay hold of him, he 
dropped to the ground, and both rolled over on the 
grass, convulsed with laughter. 

“ Come, Gus, don’t pull a fellow’s hands off.” 

Sit up, then, and listen to Prince.” 

Which Prince ? We have two, you know.” 

“The Black one, of course. The Gray Prince 
wouldn’t soil his hands with what we intend to do 
to-morrow afternoon,” was the impatient answer. 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

“Blackwell, are you spokesman? If so, out with 
it. I’d like to know what started such an awful 
racket.” 

“ O, I only proposed using a little of our surplus 
strength in behalf of old Aunt Milly. Some one sent 
her a nice load of wood, and we are going to cut and 
saw it for her. We’ve asked all in our class but you 
and Grayson. Will you go ? ” 

“ Certainly. I’d do anything for the good old soul. 
She took care of me last winter when I had the mea- 
sles, and she’d fix up splendid messes for a fellow to 
eat. I always have meant to pay her some way.” 

“ Now, where’s Grayson ? We must ask him,” 
§aid Blackwell, in a tone of relief. He had had his 
doubts about Nat ; for he had been in the school 
part of a term only, and seeing him with Grayson so 
much, he had been led to suppose they were alike. 

-Nat pointed to some one standing under a tree 
near the pond, and Gus Bickford shouted, — 

“ Grayson, come here ! we want you.” 

But the solitary figure remained motionless. 

“ If the Prince won’t come to us, we must go to the 
Prince. Let’s descend upon him in a body,” said the 
lively Gus, as he led the noisy boys toward the pond. 

Seeing Grayson’s clouded face, Nat took upon him- 
self the task of bringing him to terms. 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

1 tell you, Grayson, the boys have got a splendid 
idea to carry out to-morrow.” 

“ Indeed ! Whose idea is it ? ” 

“ Blackwell’s,” answered Gus, innocently. Gus 
didn’t understand the Gray Prince as well as Nat. 

“ It must be splendid, then,” was the sneering 
remark. 

Nat saw Blackwell’s clinched hands and compressd 
lips, and hastened to say, — 

“ It will be jolly fun. We are all going over to cut 
and saw wood for Aunt Milly. We ought to do it, for 
she always takes care of us when we are sick.” 

“ I never yet have worked for niggers,” was the 
haughty answer. 

Gus laughed outright, as much at his manner as 
his words. This provoked Grayson to add, — 

“7" say, let niggers work for each other and he 
turned square round, and looked meaningly at Prince 
Blackwell. 

The latter turned pale ; his eyes flashed dan- 
gerously. 

Nat once more attempted to make peace by saying, 
pleasantly, yet in his own droll way, — 

“ Come, two Are-crackers are one too many just at 
this present time. I want you. Prince ; ” and taking 
the arm of the mulatto, he led him away. 


The Black and the Gray Prince, 

After they were at a safe distance he dropped his 
playful manner. In a tone of real regret, he attempted 
to apologize for his friend. He made rather bad work 
of it ; for Nat was honest, and he was growing to de- 
spise Grayson himself. He was cut short with the 
words, — 

“ Don’t try to smooth it over. I know he hates me, 
and just why. It is because I am the best scholar in 
the class. He thinks I shall take the Latin prize ; 
and I presume I shall j for I cannot fail when I know 
my lesson perfectly. And it is such a real pleasure 
to study hard, that I don’t think I shall give it up for 
Prince Grayson.” 

Nat couldn’t help showing the admiration he felt 
for the ambitious student; and he expressed it in 
true schoolboy style. 

“You’re a brick, that’s a fact;” and he laid his 
hand familiarly on the other’s shoulder. “ Don’t mind 
what Grayson says. I begin to think he isn’t wortli 
minding. I like you first-rate, and so do the other 
fellows. Still, you better let me try my luck with such 
a tinder-box alone.” 

Grayson looked far from pleasant as Nat ap- 
proached; yet this did not silence the latter. 

“ You’ll go with us — won’t you ? ” 

“ No. I’m going out on the pond ; and, Nat, you 
promised to go with me.” 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

“ So I will. But there’ll be time enough after cut- 
ting the wood.” 

“ Who wants to get all tired out before we begin 
to row ? ” 

“We might as well get tired doing something use- 
ful once in our lives.” 

“ Isn’t rowing useful ? ” 

“ What good does it do us ? ” 

“ Doesn’t it develop the muscles ? ” 

“ Any more than cutting or sawing wood ? ” 

“ Well, everybody says rowing is good exercise.” 

“ Rowing is well enough. I like it tip-top. But, 
after all, just think how many poor old bodies we 
might help by spending a part of our time cutting and 
sawing wood. We shouldn’t work as hard as we do 
racing, and there’d be no danger of half killing our- 
selves, as Everts did last year.” 

“ Better pull down the gymnasiums, then ; and let 
fellows at school put an ax or saw over their shoulders, 
and call on every old woman who has a stick of 
wood,” was the sarcastic reply. 

“ Not a bad idea. Guess I’ll draw up a paper for 
that purpose.” 

“ You’d better. It’s just like some of your odd 
notions.” 

“ Thank you. That’s a compliment, if you did bul 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

know it. Now say, won’t you go with us ? ” urged 
Nat, after a pause. 

“ No, I won’t.” 

“ Hope you’ll enjoy rowing by yourself, then. 1 
shan’t hurry to join such an accommodating fellow j ” 
and Nat followed the other boys, who were now some 
distance away. 

II. 

Saturday morning, at the Academy, was always 
devoted to essays, declamations, and select readings. 
And during the present term Mr. Frost, the principal, 
had given two merit marks to all who were well pre- 
pared for such exercises, as there was a strong inclina- 
tion on the part of many to absent themselves on this 
particular morning, or else to plead some excuse for 
miserable failures. 

Nat, although not a brilliant speaker, was good in 
his way. He must choose his own subjects, then they 
always suited his style of delivery to perfection. 

Not feeling perfectly prepared, he took his book 
the next morning to a favorite seat near the pond 
for a half hour’s quiet study. Another motive, also, 
was inclining his steps that way. 

He was a trifle anxious to be near the pond when 
Prince Blackwell passed on his way to the Academy 


The Black and the Gray Frince. 

He very soon, however, became absorbed in his 
declamation, and was just closing his book with a 
satisfied “ Now I’m sure of it,” when the sound of a 
quick step caught his ear. 

“-That’s Blackwell ! ” he exclaimed, half aloud, as 
he stepped back into the cluster of bushes which com- 
pletely hid him from view, while, at the same time, he 
could see distinctly all who passed. 

He was about to draw a long breath of relief as he 
thought to himself, — 

“ The Black Prince is safe for this morning,” when 
a voice he well knew shouted, — . 

“ Good morning, Mr. Blackwell. I’d like to see 
you a moment.” 

The mulatto turned instantly, and faced his tor- 
mentor. 

“ What do you wish ? ” he coolly asked. 

“ Wish I wish to wash a little of that dirt, tan, 
or whatever it is, off your face. It really annoys me 
to see it, if you will excuse my saying so.” 

Nat could see the other’s clinched hands and 
straightened form, and wondered that Grayson did 
not take warning. He did seem a little surprised at 
the other’s silence ; but he must have been deter- 
mined to provoke him, for he continued, — 

“ Didn’t your mother have soapsuds enough left in 
her washtub to scrub you cleaner ? ” 


The Black and the Gray Prince, 

Nat drew a quick breath as he noted the effect 
of these cruel words. With blazing eyes Blackwell 
sprang at his enemy. 

Insult me^ but breathe a word against my mother 
at your peril ! You coward ! You coward^ I say ! ” 

Now, Grayson had intentionally chosen a certain 
spot on the bank, near which to meet the mulatto. 
It was very steep, and a slight push would send one 
into quite deep water. Yet now he entirely forgot 
this, forgot even that he was near the pond ; and, as 
the other’s wrathful face came near, he involuntarily 
stepped backward, lost his balance, and the next 
instant the Gray, instead of the Black Prince, was 
struggling in the water. 

For a few moments that wrathful face glared upon 
him from the bank above ; then there was a sudden 
change. The face was still pale, but the eyes had 
lost their fierce glow. Bending low, as he grasped 
firmly a branch near, he said, — 

“ Here, Grayson, take my hand.” 

It was an exceedingly difficult undertaking to climb 
up the steep bank alone ; yet the Gray Prince was 
half inclined to try, rather than touch Blackwell’s 
hand. But he was always a little nervous when in 
the water, and he was fearful that the bushes, by 
which he was holding himself up, would give way. 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

He looked around. He could see no one, and he 
reluctantly grasped the quietly-extended brown hand. 

As he was, with apparent ease, almost lifted up the 
bank, the thought flashed through his mind that the 
mulatto was remarkably strong. 

“ Guess I better not attempt to push him in this 
week,” was his mental comment, as he stood dripping 
on the bank. 

“ Get those wet clothes off, and you’ll be all right. 
Good morning.” And Blackwell turned away. The 
other, without a word of thanks, hurried home. 

When both were out of sight, Nat left his hiding- 
place j and, taking a shorter path, by running swiftly 
he reached the Academy before Blackwell. 

The bell was ringing as he took his seat. He tried 
to look cool and unconcerned while the roll was called. 
There was but one name before Blackwell’s, when a 
quick step was heard on the stairs. 

“ Blackwell ? ” 

Blackwell walked in with firm step and glowing 
face, and took his seat. “ Present ! ” 

A few more names j then, — 

“ Grayson ? ” 

Nat had usually answered for him j but now he was 
obstinately silent, and Gus almost shouted, — 

“ Absent ! ” 


The Black and the Gray Princ *. . 

“ I think I saw him not half an hour ago,” said Mr. 
Frost, in an inquiring tone. 

Nat glanced at Blackwell, then quietly answered, — 

“ / saw Blackwell pulling him out of the pond a 
little while ago. Guess he’s gone home to change 
his clothes, for he was pretty wet.” 

An almost audible “ Good I ” from Gus, nearly up- 
set the gravity of the school. And but for the quick 
veto which the looks of their teacher expressed, the 
boys would, then and there, have given three cheers 
for the plucky Black Prince. 

Blackwell had chosen for his declamation the 
“Speech of Rienzi to the Romans.” He was the 
best speaker in the school. Before he came, Gray- 
son had considered himself the first. 

This morning the mulatto was speaking with even 
more than his usual animation. And Nat thought 
he understood the cause of the deep meaning which 
he put into the words, — 

“ Slaves to a horde 
Of petty tyrants, feudal despots j ” 

as he came to the words, — 

“ I have known deeper wrongs,” 

Grayson walked in, dressed in faultless taste ; and 
teacher as well as pupils noticed the flash of the 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

speaker’s eyes, and the deeper color which tinged 
the brown cheeks. 

When Grayson was fairly in his seat, Blackwell’s 
words caught his attention; and after one look of 
suqmse and annoyance, he whispered to Nat, — 

“ If that goose isn’t speaking the same piece which 
I learned.” 

“ He doesn’t take to the water any more readily 
than you do, if he is a goose,” was the cool answer. 

Grayson looked at him keenly, but not a muscle 
moved ; and he could only conjecture as to the cause 
of Nat’s remark. 

But he resolved not to speak that piece now, for he 
was quite sure he* could not do as well as Blackwell. 
Neither did he wish to say, “ Not prepared,” when 
called upon. Before he had well decided, he heard 
his name, — 

“ Grayson.” 

He quickly left his seat, as though to perform his 
part ; but he stopped by the side of his teacher, and 
there were a few words. Mr. Frost apparently asser t- 
ed to whatever he wished, for he returned to his 
seat with a satisfied look. It vanished, somewhat, 
as he saw that Mr. Frost was regarding him rather 
searchingly. It wholly disappeared as the report was 
read. 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

*' Blackwell, two — Bickford, one. I wish you would 
endeavor to learn your next declamation perfectly, 
Bickford. Don’t you think you could, if you gave 
your mind to it as thoroughly as you do to some 
things ? ” asked the teacher, kindly j for, in spite of 
his faults, the fun-loving, yet generous-hearted Gus, 
was a favorite with all. 

“ Don’t know, sir. I never could remember any- 
thing,” was the half-laughing answer. 

“ Who do you suppose can sing the greatest num- 
ber of comic songs here ? ” 

“Gus Bickford,” Gus himself answered. Even 
Mr. Frost joined in the laugh which followed ; then 
added, — 

“ I have no doubt Gus Bickford could learn any- 
thing he was interested in equally well.” 

As the report was continued the Gray Prince felt 
his cheeks tingle as he caught once more that keen 
look from his teacher’s eyes. 

“Grayson, one. I may, however, give you two, 
after I have made a few inquiries. I wish to see you, 
Stedman, after the others leave.” 

Although Nat received two marks also, it did not 
atone for the unpleasant task which he well knew w'as 
before him. He must tell the whole truth if ques- 
tioned ; and he plainly saw that it would result in the 
loss of one if not both of Grayson’s marks. 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

“ What’s up ? ” 

“ What did Frost wish to see you about my marks 
for ? ” 

These questions were asked simultaneously by Gus 
and Grayson the moment Nat appeared after his in- 
terview with Mr. Frost. 

“Strictly private — can’t tell,” was Nat’s evasive 
answer. 

Both knew it was perfectly useless to tease him 
after he had once made up his mind not to tell. 

But Grayson could not help asking, with anxiety as 
well as anger in his tone, — 

“ Will he give me two marks or one, Nat Stedman ? ” 

“ Not any,” was the reluctant answer. 

“ You lie ! He said he’d give me one.” 

“ Go and ask yourself why he’s changed his mind.” 

“ I will ; ” and Grayson, thoroughly angry now, 
rushed into the Academy. 

“ Let’s wait, and see if the Frost doesn’t cool our 
fiery Prince a little,” said Gus. 

“ No ; he’ll be mad as a hornet. We’d better keep 
out of his way.” 

“ Let him sting, if he wants to ; he can’t kill this 
child.” 

“ Stings are troublesome things.” 

“ Well, tell a fellow about that water scrape, then.” 


The Black and the Gray Prince. 

“ Can’t do it. We must give our whole attention 
to Aunt Milly’s wood-pile now.” 

“ Before dinner ? I’m a little too hungry for that, 
I tell you.” 

“ I didn’t mean go to work now ; but we must plan 
a little, for a part should carry axes and a part saws.” 

“ That’s so. Let’s run and catch the other boys, 
and see about it.” 

Plans were soon formed, and the hungry boys 
dispersed. 

The work which the boys had undertaken that 
afternoon would have been formidable to one, but it 
was comparatively easy for eight or nine. And after 
the wood was nicely packed in the tiny w'ood-shed, 
they filed out of the yard, each with his ax, saw, 
or saw-horse over his shoulder; and we should be 
obliged to look far for a happier or noisier set of 
boys. 

As they passed the pond on their homeward way, 
Nat stopped and looked for his friend Grayson. He 
soon spied him far away, almost beyond hailing dis- 
tance. He mounted the fence near, and shouted his 
name. 

“ Let me try it,” said Gus, as they saw that he took 
no notice of Nat. 

Gus sprang upon the fence, and soon a cry was 










I 


» * 






, ■- ’■ ■ ' '' 9X^K^ * ' A ■ ^ ’’s 


The Black and the Gray Prince, 

sent over the water, such as could come only from the 
throat of Gus Bickford. This was followed by a 
regular locomotive whistle. 

These sounds reached the ears of the Gray Prince. 
He looked around. Nat waved his hat. But the boat 
did not turn. 

Then Gus cried, “ Gin you the slip, Nat. Let’s 
entertain him with three rousing cheers for Aunt 
Milly.” 

They were given with a will. 

The Gray Prince tried to row out of hearing. 

But Gus cried, — 

“ Now, three cheers for the Black Prince ! ” 
Grayson must have heard even these ; for he urged 
his boat away as rapidly as possible. 

“ Now let’s leave him alone in his glory,” said Nat. 
And the Gray Prince was left alone for many 
a day. 




THE 

LOST LUGGAGE OF A MERMAID. 



|OU can sail for days and days in a 
yacht and have nothing happen — 
in fact, you take up your bed and 
board in a yacht mostly to get out 
of the way of things happening. If it 
don’t storm, and you don’t get wrecked, 
and are so steady-minded as not to make 
landings, you can sail and sail, and be 
sure that to-morrow will be like to-day and yesterday 
— all days of Sweet Do Nothing. No callers, no 
newspapers, no letters nor telegrams to bring you to 
sudden joy or to sudden grief. You are safe from 
Fate until the wind rises, or you land to get the mails. 

We were a merry party of old friends, and all lov- 
ing the water like old salts. We had a good cook ; 


The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid, 

and we had all the new books. The sunshiny days 
and the moony nights followed upon each other in 
the true dolcefar-niente succession. 

But one night something did happen. We were 
skirting along shore, at a goodly distance, however. 
We were dreaming and lounging on deck when, all at 
once, Norma called out, “O, Lorlei, do just look at 
the sea, and at the sides of our boat ! ” 

I did. Everything was all a-flash. The sea was 
lit up everywhere. Such an illuminat;ion ! 

“ Probably some mermaid married to-night ! ” Tom 
had removed his cigar, and honored the spectacle 
with an appreciative stare. 

I had read about the phosphorescence of the sea, 
had seen a little of its wondrous spectacular effect, 
but never upon such a scale as this. It outdid all 
the Fourth-of-July illuminations I ever saw. You can 
light up a few city squares quite respectably if you 
are willing to pour out money like water to buy rock- 
ets, and Roman candles, and wheels, and fire-balls, 
and what not ; but you would have to attach a fairy 
rainbow candle to every blade of grass, and carpet 
the pavements with iris phosphor, before you could 
begin to approach the sea as it was in its beauty and 
glory that night. 

When I first looked up, at Norma’s cry, far as the 


The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid, 

eye could reach the sea seemed covered with snow — 
snow, or else intense sparkling white light, as if every 
living atom in the ocean had come to the surface in 
countless crowds bearing torches. But nearer, wher- 
ever our boat disturbed the waves, what a flashing of 
rainbows there was ! Every wavelet was crested with 
a dazzling prism, which flashed, broke, and came again 
dazzlingly. At one end a web of gold seemed pouring 
against the side of the boat, sliding down into the sea, 
yard upon yard, from some elfin loom measured off 
by viewless hands — how I hated Rufus for smiling 
at our exclamations of delight ! 

“ Nothing but a shoal of jelly-fish, girls ! nothing 
in the world but Medusae.” 

“ I don’t care — it is wonderful, wondrously beauti- 
.ul, even if you dare to tell me half the light comes 
from dead zoophites.” I splashed my hand in a ris- 
ing wave, my fingers dripped pearls and diamonds — 
if I could only have kept enough to set a ring ! 

“ Ctenophorae,” said Rufus, laconically, as he looked 
backward at the track of fire in our wake j and point- 
ing to a lovely blue-edged wave, “ Dysmorphosa, too.” 

I didn’t care whether it was Jelly-fishes, or Crusta- 
cea, Medusae, or shrimps, though Rufus’ explanations 
were pretty enough. He put just a drop or two of the 
sea into a pitcher of water, and it lit up the pitcher like 





» 



N 




The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid. 

a candle. He put another drop or two in milk, and the 
milk shone so we could actually see to read by it. A 
bowl of the sea water, after standing a while, ceased 
to shine — “ went out,” Norma said. Then Rufus 
dropped a drop of acid in, and the bowl was filled 
with flashing stars. I hoped the little Medusae were 
not wriggling in torture ; I was afraid they were ; but, 
perhaps, after lying in salt so long they didn’t mind 
vinegar. 

And O, how cunning the little living lamps were 
under Rufus’ microscope ! Some of them were trans- 
parent, and filled with starry points that would emit 
flashes as fast as you could wink. 

We floated slowly along through the lovely illumina- 
tion, watching a weird, faint aurora borealis in the 
northern sky. Suddenly Norma cried out, “Rufus, 
what is that ? isn’t that a lady’s belt on the top of 
that wave ? Look quick — that wave yonder ! ” 

We all bent over the side. It was a lady’s belt — 
such a lovely one — a shining, silvery ribbon two yards 
long, fringed on the edges with a dainty “pearling” 
in all manner of lovely colors. 

“0,0! ” said Norma. “ O, 0 1 ” said Helen. “ O, 
O ! ” said I. “ How came it here ? What has hap 
pened ? ” 

“ That is a sash,” said Rufus. “ In fact, it is the 


The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid, 

‘Girdle of Venus.’ But all the same, it is a living 
thing, a big Medusa, a Jelly-fish. That bright fringe 
is its oars, its cilia^ you know, by which it paddles 
itself along.” 

I didn’t believe it, not at first. But brother Tom 
confirmed him. “Yes, girls; and if we could get it 
for you, it would be simply a long, sticky streak of 
gelatine in less than no time, if you didn’t keep it in 
water, dull as could be, and finally dry up and dis- 
appear.” 

Wasn’t Tom horrid ? And to think that what he 
said should be true ! 

Norma was hanging over the side, silent. “ Lorlei, 
come here,” she said, softly. Helen and I both 
came, followed lazily by Rufus and Tom. “ Lorlei,” 
she said, “ do look and see if you can see what I do 
— such a lot of things that look as if a lady’s trunk 
had been spilled into the sea. I believe that was a 
lady’s belt ! ” 

I looked off upon the shining waves. I did see 
something — several queer-looking objects. 

Rufus laughed grimly. “ Perhaps the mermaid has 
lost some of her luggage.” 

The nearest thing looked exactly like a stiff, dense 
blue feather, just such a one as we ladies call an 
“aigrette,” and put on our hats. How each little 


The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid. 


plumule of the long feather did shine at its tip ! We 
three girls watched it float out of sight. “ Boys, that 
was certainly a feather from some lady’s hat,” said 
Norma. 

Rufus smiled. Tom did, too, but was good enough 



Hbr Plumb, 

to add that the things did look like “women’s fix- 
ings.” “ Guess the little sea-bride did lose one of her 
trunks off hereabouts — fell off, broke open, and spilt 
her things.” 

I ventured a wish that the plume might be secured. 
•‘If we had a net, .1 could,” Rufus said. “If we 


The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid. 

were over the other side, on the Irish coast, say, 
almost any fisherman could furnish you such a feather 
from his nets. I’ve often seen them. It is called 
the * sea-pen.’ Those little fronds up and down the 
^ quill ’ are alive — in fact, each of them is a cell 
inhabited by a polyp. The ‘feather’ lives with its 
stem stuck in the sea mud. It is only detached by 
accident.” 

So it wasn’t a lady’s plume. “ Rufus,” Helen said, 
“if we see anything nice again, please don’t tell us 
its history. In the water the feather is as pretty as 
anything that ever came from Paris. And to think it 
would be a dull, sticky mass if we could get it ! My 
goodness, Norma,” she cried, “ the little sea-bride has 
spilt her trunk here, I do believe ! See, girls, if there 
isn’t her sun-hat I I dare say she provided it to pre- 
serve her complexion when she comes up to bask on 
the beach.” 

Sure enough ! I could plainly make out a floating 
hat. So could Tom. “Trimmed with both fringe 
and lace, extravagant creature ! ” 

“Yes,” said Norma. “Sure as you live, Lorlei, 
she’s got a heavy fall of handsome lace on her sun- 
hat 1” 

With their help, I could see something like a cas- 
cade of deep Valenciennes floating at the back of the 



1 








The Lost Luggage of a AfermaiL 


hat. “Well,” I said, “probably there’s plenty on the 
floor of the ocean after all the rich cargoes that have 
gone down.” 

“Mr. ‘Agassiz’ Pendleton,” said Norma, after she 
was satisfied that Rufus wasn’t going to speak, “ do 
you dare affirm that that is a nasty, sticky Medusa, 
too ? ” 

“ I shall be forced to, my dear Miss Luttrell. I’ve 
seen them thrown on shore many a time. There they 
look like a mere mass of blubber, and melt away 
rapidly in the sun; in fact, its substance all drains 
out, and leaves a little quantity of transparent stuff 
resembling cobwebs, full of empty cells. That ‘ lace ’ 
is its stomach. Put back in water it will soon fill up 
and resume — ” 

“ Hello, girls,” interrupted Tom ; “ here’s her 
brooch — bet a dollar her jewel-box has gone to the 
bottom ! ” 

% 

We could see two or three of them after a min- 
ute’s steady look — brooches, and what pretty pat- 
terns for our jewelers ! little octagonal breast-pins 
shining with pearly green and pink reflections, set at 
each of their eight points with a star-like cluster of 
lights. 

“ How bad, were I Mademoiselle Mermaid, I should 
feel to have lost them ! ” said Norma. “ I shall bid 


The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid. 

you dive after them for me, Mr. Rufus, unless you 
speedily manage to disenchant me — tell me, quick, 
that tney are some 
more of your sticky 
Jelly-fishes.” 

“Your wish is my 
law. They are J el- 
ly-fishes, and our 
most common ones 
— the Lucernaria. 

If they don’t get 
out of sight too 
soon, you may see 
them contract at 
the edges, reveal their stems, and take the form of 
vases — only they aren’t hollow. They are all stom- 
ach and egg-pouches \ and those ‘ stars ’ at the points 
are tentacles and auricles to eat with and to ‘ hang 
hold’ by. They are usually found among' eel-grass 
’long shore ; how they drifted so far from their moor- 
ings I can’t conceive. See there. Miss Luttrell — 
there, to the right — there, there, floating on the sur- 
face, is your sea-bride’s chignon ; and her hair’s red- 
dish brown, and she’s a milk-white blonde by Jiat 
token.” 

We saw, indeed, a long mass of tresses, “ reddish 



Her Brooch. 



The Lost Luggage of a Merfiiaiu. 

brown, changeable with pale yellow shimmers, and 
with a pearly fleck here and there — mystic hair, but 
just what I should suppose a mermaid would have. 
At the top there shone something like a dark pearl- 
edged comb. I supposed at once that that was the 
body of the creature. By this time, you see, I knew 
that the mermaid’s “ things ” were alive. 

“Unfortunate young lady!” said Tom. “Let’s 
hope this fine floating ‘back hair’ was only a ‘re- 
serve’ for evening parties, and that she has plenty 
of good solid braids on her head for every-day wear.” 

“ Discourse now, O, wise Rufus I ” said Norma. 

“Jelly-fish again. A Discophore. Cyanea. Like 
the rest, nothing but sea-blubber on land. Hair com- 
monly forty feet in length. But Agassiz once encoun- 
tered one, and measuring by his oar, backing his boat 
the whole length of the hair, he found this monster 
chignon to be one hundred and twelve feet long ; 
the body was seven feet in diameter. But that hair, 
ladies — those tentacles — a fellow don’t care to get 
entangled in them when he’s out bathing; for they 
sting like nettles. Up and down these tentacles are 
cells, each containing a fine whip snugly coiled up ; 
at will the fish can spring them out — it’s worse than 
any galvanic battery I ever tried. The mother of 
this giant is a little thing called a Hydroid ; and she 



Her Comb. 

Tennyson has seen it, and seen her — 

“ Combing her hair 
Under the sea, 

In a golden curl, 

With a comb of pearl.” 


The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid. 


is never, even when full grown, over half an inch in 
height.” 

But I, near-sighted Lorlei, was the one to discover 
the prettiest article — the poor sea-bride’s comb. Un- 
fortunate mermaid ! what ^/^she do when she got there, 
without her comb.? Such a handy comb, too — just 
such a one as a fairy creature would be likely to select, 
so long and fine, the teeth glittering like a prism. 


The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid, 

But I haven’t told you the especial handiness of 
it in the luggage of a traveling mermaid. The mo- 
ment she gets her hair combed with it, she can stick 
it in her tresses, and it will all knot up into a jew- 
eled hair-pin, or it will float in a long, graceful, ex- 
quisite, rainbowy feather over her head and down her 
neck. 

I had already seen enough of the infinite variety of 
Jelly-fish to know what the Solomonic Rufus would 
say ; and when he began, “ Class, Ctenophorae, or 
Comb-bearers, Individual, Pleurobrachia,” I put my 
fingers in my ears. I didn’t want the disenchanter’s 
rod waved over that exquisite and marvelous comb. 
I didn’t want to hear that the prismatic teeth of the 
pretty ornament were the creature’s “ tentacles ” and 
“oars.” 

Happily for my rainbow comb, Tom interrupted him 
as eagerly as one of us girls. “ Here’s some more 
spoil from the smashed trunk ! ” He was looking 
through his eye-glass. “Jupiter! won’t she weep and 
wail, though, when she finds it is that particular 
‘ chist ’ that is gone. Rufe, see ; there’s the smoking- 
cap she’s embroidered for her lord and master float- 
ing at the stern there ! ” 

So it was — a nice one, too. I’ll wager they keep 
Christmas down there, for that was no first attempt 


The Lost I^uggage of a Mermaid. 

at a smoking-cap. It was of pink velvet, I should 
say, worked in dainty running pattern, finished with 
fringes up and down the Grecian lines — red, yellow, 
orange, green, and purple — and a sweet rosette at 
the top. 

I just dreaded to hear Rufus 
take the romance out of this dain- 
ty gift which the young bride had, 
doubtless, fashioned sitting in her 
cool, green sea-grotto, dreaming of 
her handsome merman lover. 

“ Ctenophorae. Genus Idyia. All 
stomach,” he said, briefly. “ Fish Smoking-cap. 

swim right into the great open stomach, mouth of 
smoking-cap contracts, and there the fish is. Handy 
— isn’t it?” 

Of course, after seeing all these things, and know- 
ing we were on the trail of the smashed-up trunk, we 
continued to look about us. We saw nothing more 
for a long time. At last Tom fixed his eye-glass on 
a distant rock of the coast we were slowly skirting. 
“Yes, ma’am, there’s her bouquet-holder stranded high 
and dry, flowers all in it neat as can be — hope the 
dear creature hasn’t been shipwrecked herself. This 
looks like it, though.” 

Norma and I took turns with the eye-glasses. We 



The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid. 


could plainly make it* out. It seemed, at that dis- 
tance, of a deep glowing color. It shone so I could 
scarcely distinguish the “flowers.” I fancied there 
was a pair of great tiger lilies, a mass of heliotropes, 
and some honeysuckles, all fringed with ribbon-grass. 
The bouquet-holder itself was of a very graceful form. 

Who could want to hear 
anything so pretty “ ex- 
plained ” ? 

Norma and Helen did, 
to my disgust. “This, at 
least, isn’t a Jelly-flsh, Mr. 
Pendleton ? ” they said. 

“Well, it is the mother 
of some of your Jelly-fishes, 
at least. Tom’s bouquet 

Her Bouquet-holder. , , , . -r-r i i 

holder is a Hobocodon 
Hydroid. The flowers are simply ten or twelve young 
bud Medusae. They are budded upon the Hydroid, 
and grow there until they are strong enough to de 
tach themselves and go sailing off upon the sea.” 

“ And so the bouquet-holder and the bouquet are 
both alive ? ” said I. “ How dreadful ! ” 

“How wonderful!” said Norma, the scientific New 
England Norma. New York boarding-schools had 
tried four long years to make simply a pretty young 



The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid. 


belle of Norma. I thought they had succeeded. But 
one hour over this mermaid’s luggage had trans- 
formed her into herself. 

“ There floats her breast-knot,” said Rufus, quickly, 
as a brilliant object swept by. It did look like a 
bunch of looped ribbons and filmy lace. 

Rufus caught Norma’s glance 
of inquiry. “A floating Hy- 
droid : a Hydra with Medusae- 
bells. There’ll ever so many 
Jelly-fish get off from that Hy- 
droid by and by.” 

We were hugging close to the 
rocky shore now. Numerous 
pools and streams stretched 
inland. In one of them Rufus 
himself pointed out a queer 

little object lying high and dry. “ One of young 
madame’s ‘ tidies ’ has drifted in here.” It certainly 
seemed like a crocheted anti-macassar with a pattern 
delicately traced with violet. 

Somehow / wanted to hear an explanation of that. 

“’Tis a sea-urchin,” he said. “The close center, 
the portion you ladies w^ould call ‘sc’ work, is his 
body. The open work, the ‘dc’ and ‘chain,’ are 
his tentacles. There is something extremely curious 



Her Breast-knot. 







The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid. 

about these ‘ tentacles,’ could we get close enough to 
see. Upon four of them are set little forks. Any 
rejected food is passed from an opening on the sum- 
mit of his body, 
down a tentacle, 
received upon 
one of these little 
forks ; this fork 
closes upon it like 
a forceps, passes 
it down to an- 
other folk, and so on until it is dropped off into the 
water.” 

“ O, look there, look there ! ” cried Norma, inter- 
rupting him. She pointed to a ledge of rock lining 
the entrance of a little bay. I saw it distinctly. 
Such a beautiful work of art — the luckless mermaid’s 
work-basket. 

“ O, how dreadfully she will feel when she knows 
she has lost that ! ” Helen said. 

“ ’Tis a work-basket, that’s a fact,” quoth Tom. 

“ Work-basket ! ” laughed Rufus. “ It’s a greedy 
net-fish. That fish will stand up and look like a 
snug latticed house on a minute’s notice. Then little 
innocent shrimps and fishes will run into it for shel- 
ter, and of course — say, girls,” he interrupted him- 



The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid. 


self, “ there’s her clothes-brush, as I live ! By the by, 
that greedy, lazy net-fish has 81,920 limbs. Governor 
Winthrop said so in 1680, when he sent a specimen to 



the Royal Society in England. No luckless shrimp 
can escape all those limbs, be sure. If he escapes 
70,000, there are still 10,920 to catch him. As for 
that clothes-brush, it is a Crinoid. Some polar wave 
must have washed that ashore, for it lives off the coast 
of Greenland.” 


The Lost Luggage of a Mermaid. 

We looked farther for an hour or two, but saw 
nothing more, only some brooches. 

It must have been her trunk of little personal treas- 
ures that was lost, we all concluded. We did not 
believe that the wedding bark itself w^as wrecked; 
for we should have found more of her outfit, we think ; 
there would have been dainty snowy garments, silk- 
en robes, and wonderful shawls, floating somewhere 
in the sea : don’t you think so ? Norma and I did. 




THE 


STRANGERS FROM THE SOUTH. 


NLESS 1 take a long half mile circle, my daily 



walk to the post-office leads me down through 
an unsavory, wooden-built portion of town. I am 
obliged to pass several cheap groceries, which smell 
horribly of sauer-kraut and Limburg cheese, a res- 
taurant steamy with Frenchy soups, a livery stable, 
besides two or three barns, and some gloomy, window- 
less, shut-up buildings, of whose use I haven’t the 
slightest idea. 

Of course, when I go out in grand toilet, I take 
the half mile circle. But, being a business woman, 
and generally in a hurry, I usually go this short way 
in my short walking-dress and big parasol ; and, prob- 
ably, there is an indescribable expression to my nose, 
just as Mrs. Jack Graham says. 








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The Strangers from the South. 

Well, one morning I was going down town in the 
greatest hurry. 1 was trying to walk so fast that 1 
needn’t breathe once going by the Dutch groceries ; 
and I was almost to the open space which looks away 
off to the sparkling river, and the distant park, and tlie 
forenoon sun, — I always take a good, long, sweet 
breath there, coming and going, — when my eye was 
caught by a remarkable group across the street. 

Yes, during the night, evidently, while the town 
was asleep, there had been an arrival — strangers 
direct from the Sunny South. 

And there the remarkable-looking strangers sat, in 
a row, along the narrow step of one of the mysterious 
buildings I have alluded to. They were sunning 
themselves with all the delightful carelessness of the 
experienced traveler. Though, evidently, they had 
been presented with the liberty of the city, it was just 
as evident that they didn’t care a fig for sightseeing — 
not a fig, either, for the inhabitants. All they asked 
of our town was its sunshine. They had selected the 
spot where they could get the most of it. Through 
the open space opposite the sun streamed broadly j 
and the side of a weather-colored building is sc 
warm ! 

What a picture of dolce far niente.^ of “sweet-do- 
nothing,” it was 1 1 stopped, hung my parasol over 


The Strangers from the South. 

my shoulder, — there was a little too much sunshine 
for me, — and amazed at it. 

“ O, how you do love it ! You bask like animals ! 
That fullness of enjoyment is denied to us white-skins. 
What a visible absorption of luster and heat 1 You 
, are the true lotus-eaters ! ” 

The umber-colored creatures — I suppose they are 
as much warmer for being brown, as any brown sur- 
face is warmer than a white one. I never did see 
sunshine drank, and absorbed, and enjoyed as that 
was. It was a bit of Egypt and the Nile life. I could 
not bear to go on. 

Finally, I crossed the street to them. Not one of 
them stirred. The eldest brother was standing, lean- 
ing against the building. He turned one eye on me, 
and kept it there. At his feet lay a bulging, ragged 
satchel. Evidently he was the protector. 

The elder sister, with hands tucked snugly under 
her folded arms, winked and blinked at me dozily. 
The little boy with the Nubian lips was sound asleep, 
— a baby Osiris, — his chubby hands hiding together 
between his knees for greater warmth. The youngest 
sister, wrapped in an old woolen shawl, was the only 
uncomfortable one of the lot. There was no doze 
nor dream in her eyes yet — poor thing, she was 
cold ! 


The Strangers from the Souths 

I didn’t believe they had had where to lay their 
heads during the night. Liberty of a city, to one 
kind of new arrivals, means just that, you know. 
Sundry crumbs indicated an absence of the conven- 
tional breakfast table. Poor little darkies ! 

“ Children,” I said, like a benevolently-disposed 
city marshal, “ you mustn’t sit here in the street.” 

“ We’s gwine on soon, mistis,” said the protector, 
meekly. 

“ I ’low we ain’t, Jim ! ” The big sister said this 
without any diminution of the utter happiness of her 
look. 

“ It’s powerful cold cornin’ up fru the norf, mistis. 
I mus^ let ’em warm up once a day,” said Jim. 

“ Up through the north ! Pray, where are you 
going ? ” 

Jim twisted about. He looked down at the toe of 
his boot, reflectively. 

“ I ex-pect, I ex-pect — ” 

“ You spec, Jim ! You allers spectin’ 1 Mistis, 
we’s free — we kin go an)rwhars ! ” 

I suspect there had been a great deal of long- 
suffering on the part of Jim. He burst out like flame 
from a smoldering fire, — 

“ Anywhars / That’s what ails niggas ! Freedom 
means anywhars to ’em, and so they’re nuffin’ nor 


Thb Strangers from the South. 

nobody. You vagabon’, Rose Moncton, you kin't gc 
anywhars much longer — not ’long o’ me ! ” 

“ O, you white folksy Jim ! I ’low this trompin’ 
was yer own plan. When you finds a town whar it’s 
any show of warm, I’ll hang up my things and stay, 
and not afore — ye hyar that ! I ’low I won’t see 
Peyty and Kit a-freezin’ ! ” 

She scowled at me, she actually did, as if I froze 
her with my pale face and cool leaf-green dress, and 
kept the sun off her, talking with that “ white folksy 
Jim.” 

I fancied Jim was hoping I would say something 
more to them. I fancied he, at least, was in great 
need of a friend’s advice. 

“ Where did you come from ? ” I asked him. But 
the other head of the family answered, — 

“ Come from nuff sight warmer place than we’i 
goin’ anywhars.” 

“ Rose is allers techy when she’s cold, mistis,” 
Jim apologized. “Ole Maum Phillis used fer to say 
as Rose’s temper goose-pimpled when the cold air 
struck it. We kim from Charleston, mistis. We’s 
speckin’ to work out some land for ourselves, and 
hev a home. We kim up norf to git wages, so as we 
kin all help at it. I’d like to stop hyar, mistis.” 

' Hyar 1 I ’low we’s goin’ soufard when we gits 







- 





9 -^S| 

i=^ 



RM5=^?3: 






The Strangers from the South. 

from dis yer, you Jim,” sniffed “ Rose Moncton,” her 
face up to the sunshine. 

Poor Jim looked care-worn. I dare say my face 
was tolerably sympathetic. It felt so, at least. 

“ Mistis,” the fellow said, “ she’s kep us tackin’ souf 
an’ norf, souf an’ norf, all dis yer week, or we’d been 
somewhars. She don’t like de looks pf no town yet. 
We’s slep’ roun’ in sheds six weeks now. I gits 
sawin’ an’ choppin’, an’ sich, to do once a day, while 
dey warms up in de sun, an’ eats a bite. Den up we 
gits, an’ tromps on. We’s got on so fur, but Rose 
ain’t clar at all yit whar we’ll stop. Mistis, whar is 
de warmest place you knows on .? ” 

I thought better and better of myself as the heavy- 
faced fellow thus appealed to me. I felt flattered by 
his confidence in me. I always feel flattered when a 
strange kitty follows me, or the birdies hop near for 
my crumbs. But I will confess that no human vaga- 
bond had ever before so skillfully touched the soft 
place in my heart. Poor, dusky wanderer ! he looked 
so hungry, he looked so worn-out, too, as a head of a 
family will when the other head pulls the other way. 

“Well, Jim, the warmest place I know of is in my 
kitchen. I left a rousing fire there ten minutes ago. 
You all stay here until I come back, which will be in 
about seven minutes ; then you shall go home with 


The Strangers ff'om the South. 

me, and I will give you a good hot dinner. You ma}? 
stay all night, if you like, and perhaps I can advise 
you. You will be rested, at the least, for a fresh 
start.’’ 

Rose Moncton lifted her listless head, and looked 
in my face. “ Laws ! ” said she. “ Laws ! ” said 
she again. 

Jim pulled his forelock to me, vailed the flash in his 
warm umbery eyes with a timely wink of the heav}' 
lids. He composed himself at once into a waiting 
attitude. 

I heard another “ Laws ! ” as I hastened away. 
“That young mistis is done crazy. She’ll nebber 
kim back hyar, ’pend on dat ! ” Such was Rose’s 
opinion of me. 

I opened my ears for Jim’s. But Jim made no 
reply. 

Father and mother had gone out of town for two 
days. Our hired girl had left. I really was “ mistis ” 
of the premises. If I chose to gather in a circle of 
shivering little “niggas” around my kitchen stove, 
and heat that stove red-hot, there was nobody to say 
I better not. 

I was back in five minutes, instead of seven. Jim 
stood straight up on bv« feet the moment he dis- 
covered me coming. Rose showed some faint signs 


The Strangers from the South. 

of life and interest. “ ’Clar, now, mistis ! Kim 
along, den, Jim, and see ye look to that there verlise. 
Hyar, you Kit ! ’’ She managed to rouse her sister 
with her foot, still keeping her hands warmly hidden, 
and her face to the sun. 

But the other head took the little ones actively in 
charge. “ Come, Peyty, boy ! come. Kit ! we’s gwine 
now ! ” 

Peyty opened his eyes — how starry they were ! 
“ O, we goin’j mo’ Jim, I don’t want to go no mo’ ! ” 

“ Ain’t gwine clar thar no, Peyty, boy ; come. Kit — 
only to a house to warm the Peyty boy — come, 
Kit ! ” 

Kit was coming fast enough. But Peyty had to 
be taken by the arm and pulled up. Then he stepped 
slowly, the tears coming. The movement revealed 
great swollen welts, where his stiff, tattered, leathern 
shoes had chafed and worn into the fat, black little 
legs. “ Is dat ar Mistis Nelly ? ” he asked, opening 
his eyes, wonderingly, at the white lady. 

Rose had got up now. A sudden quiver ran over 
her face. “ No, Peyty. Mist’ Nelly’s dead, you 
know. Wish we’s back to Mas’r Moncton’s, and 
Mist’ Nelly libbin’, an’ Linkum sojers dead afore 
dey cum ! ” 

There was a long sigh from everybody, even from 


The Strangers from the South. 

Jinr. But he drew in his lips tightly the next moment. 
“ Some niggas nebber was worf freein’. Come along, 
Peyty, boy — ready, mistis.” 

I walked slowly along at the head of the strangers 
from the south. Little feet were so sore, Peyty 
couldn’t walk fast. Kit’s big woman’s size shoes 
were so stiff she could only shuffle along. Jim’s toes 
were protruding, and I fancied he and Rose were as 
foot-sore as the little ones. I dare say people looked 
and wondered ; but I am not ashamed to be seen with 
any kind of children. 

I took them around to the back door, into the 
kitchen, which I had found unendurable while baking 
my bread and pies. The heated air rushed out against 
my face as I opened the door. It was a delicious 
May-day ; but the procession behind me, entering, 
proceeded direct to the stove, and surrounded it in 
winter fashion, holding their hands out to the heat. 
Even from Jim I heard a soft sigh of satisfaction. 

Poor, shivering children of the tropics ! I drew up 
the shades. There were no outer blinds, and the 
sun streamed in freely. 

“There, now. Warm yourselves, and take your 
own time for it. Put in wood, Jim, and keep as much 
fire as you like. I am going to my room to rest for an 
hour. Be sure that you don’t go off, for I wish you 


The Strangers from the South, 

to stay here until you are thoroughly rested. I have 
plenty of wood for you to saw, Jim.” 

I brought out a pan of cookies. I set them on the 
table. “ Here, Rose, see that Peyty and Kit have 
all they want. When I come down, I’ll get you some 
dinner.” 

The poor children in stories, and in real life, too, 
for that matter, always get only bread and butter — 
dear me, poor dears ! When I undertake a romance 
for these waifs in real life, or story, I always give them 
cookies — cookies, sweet, golden, and crusty, with 
sifted sugar. 

I left them all, even to Jim, looking over into the 
pan. My ! rich, sugary jumbles, and plummy queen’s 
cakes? When I saw their eyes dance — no sleep in 
those eyes now — I was glad it wasn’t simply whole- 
some sandwiches and plain fried cakes, as somebody 
at my elbow says now it ought to have been. I 
would have set out a picnic table, with ice-cream and 
candies, for those wretched little “ niggas,” if I could ! 
I nodded to them, and went away. It is so nice, after 
you have made a child ^appy, to add some unmistaka- 
ble sign that it is quite welcome to the happiness ! 

I knew there was nothing which they could steal. 
I expected they would explore the pantry. I judged 
them by some of my little white friends. But the silver 


The Strangers from the South. 

was locked up. China and glass would hardly be 
available. If, after they had stuffed themselves with 
those cookies, they could want cold meat, and bread 
and butter, I surely shouldn’t begrudge it. Then I 
thought of my own especial lemon tart, which stood 
cooling on the shelf before the window ; but I was 
not going back to insult that manly Jim Moncton by 
removing it. 

Just as I was slipping on my dressing-gown up in 
my own cool, quiet chamber, I caught a faint sound 
of the outside door of the kitchen. Something like a 
shriek, or a scream, followed. Then there was an 
unmistakable and mighty overturning of chairs. I 
rushed down. At the very least I expected to see my 
romantic “ Rose Moncton ” with her hands clenched 
in brother Jim’s kinky hair. With loosened tresses, 
without belt or collar, I appeared on the scene. 

What did I see? Why, I saw Phillis, Mrs. Jack 
Graham’s black cook, with every one of my little 

niggas ” in her arms — heads of the family and all ! 
There they were, sobbing and laughing together, the 
portly Phillis the loudest of fhe whole. One of Mrs. 
Jack’s favorite china bowls lay in fragments on the 
floor. 

Phillis called out hysterically as she saw me. Jim 
discovered me the same moment. He detached him- 


The Strangers from the South. 

self, went up to the window, and bowed his head down 
upon the sash. I saw the tears roll down his cheek 
and drop. 

“ Laws, Miss Carry ! dese my ole mas’r’s niggers ! 
dey’s Mas’r Moncton’s little nigs, ebery one ! dey’s 
runned roun’ under my feet in Mas’r Moncton’s 
-citchen many a day down in ole Carline — bress em 
souls ! She hugged them again, and sobbed afresh. 
The children clung to the old cook’s neck, and waist, 
and arms like so many helpless, frightened black 
kittens. 

Phillis at last recovered her dignity. She pointed 
them to their chairs. She picked up the pieces of 
china in her apron. “ Done gone, anyhow — dese 
pickaninnies gib ole Phillis sich a turn ! It mose like 
seein’ Mas’r Moncton an’ Miss Nelly demselves. 
Whar you git ’em, Miss Carry ? ” 

I told her. 

“ Bress your heart. Miss Carry 1 Len’ me a cup, 
and git me some yeast, and I’ll bring Mistis Graham 
ober, an’ I’ll be boun’, when she sees dat ar lubly 
little Peyty, she’ll hire him to — to — to — lor! she’ll 
hire him to look into his diamint eyes.” 

I know she herself kissed tears out of more than 
one pair of “ diamint eyes ” while I was getting the 
yeast. I heard her. 


The Strangers from the South, 

“ O, Maum Phillis ! ” I heard Jim say. “ You think 
we’ll hire out roun’ hyar ? ” 

** Could we, Maum Phillis ? ” pleaded Rose, her 
voice soft and warm now. “We’s done tired out. 
I’m clean ready to drop down in my tracks long this 
yer blessed stove, and nebber stir anywhars ! ” 

“ Press you, chilluns ! You hev tromped like sojers, 
clar from ole Carline ! Spec it seems like home, 
findin’ one of de old place hands — Phillis knows. 
Dar, dar I don’t take on so. Miss Carry, she’ll bunk 
you down somewhar it’s warm, and thar you stay an’ 
rest dem feet. I’ll send my mistis ober, and dey 
two’ll pervide fer ye on dis yer street ; dis yer one ob 
de Lord’s own streets.” 

Well, do you think Mistis Graham and Mistis Carry 
dishonored Maum Phillis’s faith in them ? 

No, indeed I The family found homes on “ de 
Lord’s own street.” Jim is coachman at Squire 
Lee’s. Peyty is at the same place, taken in at first 
for his sweet disposition, and “ diamint eyes,” I sus- 
pect. He is now a favorite table-waiter. 

Kit is Maum Phillis’s right-hand woman. Rose is 
our own hired girl. She is somewhat given to sleep- 
iness, and to idling in sunny windows, and to scorch- 
ing her shoes and aprons against the stove of a 
winter’s evening. But, on the whole, she is a good 


The Strangers from the South. 


servant ; and we have built her a bedroom out of 
the kitchen. 

I have never regretted crossing the street to speak 
to the strangers from the south. 




GHOSTS AND WATER-MELONS. 


B obby TATMAN was a little Yankee fellow, but 
he looked like an Italian boy, with his tangly 
brown hair, and his soft, simple dark eyes. He was very 
fond of water-melons ; but he was very much afraid of 
ghosts; and in his simple heart he believed every- 
thing that was told him, and thereby hangs a tale. 

There was a man, whom all the neighbors knew as 
Uncle Ben, who had some very fine water-melons — 
which Bobby knew all about — for they were only 
about a mile from Bobby’s father’s house. 

These were the nearest water-melons that Bobby 
knew of, and he used to go over occasionally, with his 
friend James Scott, to look at them, and see how they 





























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Ghosts and Water-melons. 


were coming on. Both Bobby and his friend grew 
much interested in the melons, as they were ripening, 
and Bobby wondered why his father did not raise 
water-melons, too. This was not a large patch, and it 
was in a sunny nook of Uncle Ben’s farm, out of sight 
from his house. 

“ It wouldn’t be stealing to take water-melons,” re- 
marked Bobby’s friend one day, as the two were sitting 
on the fence alongside the little patch. “ It wouldn’t 
be any more stealing than picking off corn to roast, 
when we go a-fishing, would be stealing, as I can see.” 

“ I don’t know as it would be,” Bobby admitted, 
musingly. “ I should like that old big fellow ! Uncle 
Ben says that’s a mountain-sweet. But it would almost 
be stealing to take that one, sure ! and Uncle Ben 
would miss it the first thing, too.” 

“I s’pose he would,” said James, “and then there’d 
be a row. It won’t do to take that one. I tell you 
what, Bobby, we won’t take any of ’em now, but we’ll 
come to-night, after dark, and then there won’t be any 
danger of anybody’s seeing us. Of course it won’t be 
stealing ; but Uncle Ben’s just mean enough to make 
a row about it, I s’pose, if he should happen to find 
it out.” 

“ I guess he would,” said Bobby. “ I shouldn’t 
want to have him see us, anyhow.” 


Ghosts and Water-melons. 


And so, not to run any risk, they concluded to 
wait. 

When it was night they came again, and sat to- 
gether upon the same fence, listening for a time for 
sounds of any others who might be approaching, 
before they got down to select their melons. All was 
still, and, feeling secure from detection, they got down 
and began to search among the vines. They could 
tell by rapping upon the melons which the ripe ones 
were, and it was not long till they had made their 
selection, and were scudding away, each with a melon 
almost as large as he could carry, along the fence 
towards Uncle Ben’s corn-field, which was still farther 
from his house. 

When they got to the corn-field they felt safe, and, 
as the melons were heavy, they concluded to eat one 
before going further. So they sat down in a nook of 
the fence — a Virginia rail-fence, as we used to call 
that kind — and Bobby took out a knife that he 
thought a great deal of — because his Aunt Hannah 
had given it him, and it had his initials on a little sil- 
ver plate set in the handle — and in a moment more 
they were eating and praising the delicious melon. 

‘ Of course ’tain’t stealing,” said James Scott, as 
Bobby again brought up that question. “Uncle Ben 
always does have better water-melons than anybody 


Ghosts and Water-melons. 


else, and he can’t expect to have ’em all to himself. 
What’s the use of living in a free country, if you can't 
have a water-melon once in a while ? Help yourself. 
Bobby — but don’t eat too near the rind.” 

Bobby helped himself, — though he could not help 
thinking all the time that it was to Uncle Ben’s water- 
melon, — and the boys filled up, gradually, till they 
could hold no more. Then each had a great shell 
that would have almost floated him, had he felt like 
going to sea in it, and the question was, what to do 
with them. 

“ Let’s tuck ’em under the bottom rail,” said James : 
“ they won’t be noticed there.” 

So they tucked them under the lower rail — a 
broad, flat rail that seemed to have been made on 
purpose to cover them — and then they both got 
straight up on their feet to stretch themselves. In 
tlie same instant they both started suddenly, and took 
to their heels. 

They ran till they were out of breath ; and James 
Scott got a long way ahead of his friend Bobby. But 
Bobby came up with James before he started again, 
and asked, as soon as he could get breath enough, 
“ Was it Uncle Ben 

“ It must have been him, or his ghost,” was the 
reply. “ Did you see his legs, Bobby ? ” 


Ghosts and Water-melons 


“ No. Did you t ” 

It didn’t look as if he had any. He was a queer- 
looking chap, anyhow.” 

“ I wonder if he’s coming ? ” And Bobby seemed 
almost ready to start again. “ Do you s’pose he knew 
us?” 

“ Shouldn’t wonder if he did. But, if ’twas Uncle 
Ben, he’d know he couldn’t catch us. He must have 
been there all the time. I say, Bobby, I’m afraid 
we’ll hear about this.” 

“ I don't see how he happened to be right there ! 
Oh, dear ! I left my knife, too ! ” 

“ I guess if t’was Uncle Ben he’ll take care of that. 
Of course he’ll know who it belongs to. If he gets 
that knife, he hadn’t oughter say anything about the 
water-melon. It’s worth more’n both on ’em.” 

“ I know it. Don’t you suppose it was Uncle Ben’s 
ghost y after all ? I wish it was ! ” 

“ It couldn’t have been, unless he’s died since 
noon, you know. He looked well enough then. Do 
you s’pose it would be of any use to go back, Bobby ? ” 
“ No, indeed ! I’d rather go home. I wish I had 
my knife, though. I wonder why he didn’t speak ? ” 
“That’s what /don’t understand. I should have 
thought he would just said something, before we got 
out of hearing ” 


Ghosts and Water-melons. 


“Like as not it wasn’t him, after all.” 

“ Like as not it wasn’t, Bobby. S’posing we go 
back.” 

“I’m going home,” was Bobby’s reply. “I don’t 
believe it pays to steal water-melons, anyway.” 

“’Twasn’t stealing, Bobby! — no such thing! Of 
course anybody’s a right to take a water-melon. Uncle 
Ben had no business to raise ’em, if folks had got to 
steal ’em before they could eat ’em ! ” 

“ That’s so,” groaned Bobby. “ I shouldn’t have 
thought he’d have planted them.” 

And so, groaning in spirit, Bobby went home. He 
had lost his knife, and everybody would know next 
day that he had been stealing water-melons. He 
couldn’t help thinking that the folks would call it 
stealifig^ after all. 

What to do he didn’t know ; but he must go home 
at all events. He was never out very late, and when 
he went in his mother asked him where he had been. 
He said he had been over to James Scott’s. 

“ I don’t like to have you over there so much, 
Bobby,” said his mother. “I am afraid James Scott 
is not a very good boy.” 

Bobby’s face was flushed, and he seemed very tired, 
so his mother told him he had better go to bed. He 
was glad enough to go, but he lay a long time think 


Ghosts and Water-melons. 


iiig of his knife and the water-melons, and of Uncle Ben 
standing there by the fence, before he went to sleep. 

Bobby slept in the attic, up under the roof. There 
was another bed in the same attic for the hired man. 
There were also a great many things for which there 
was no room anywhere else, — large chests, piles of 
bedding, and things that had got past use. 

Bobby got to sleep at last ; but he awoke in the 
night — something unusual for him — after the moon 
had risen, and was giving just light enough to show 
things in the room very dimly. He opened his eyes, 
and almost the first object he saw caused his heart to 
beat very quickly. Somebody was sitting upon one 
of those large chests. It was a dim and indistinct 
form, but it looked ghostly white in the moonlight, 
and Bobby could not help feeling afraid. He had 
never seen a ghost, fairly, but he began to think now 
that he had one in his room. 

Bobby lay and watched that ghost, feeling warm 
and cold by turns, till at last he was sure it was be- 
ginning to look like Uncle Ben. The wind had begun 
to blow, and to move the branches of the old elm 
outside, thus causing the moonlight to flicker fitfully 
in the room. It seemed as if it must be Uncle Ben ! 
Bobby could see him laugh, though he could not hear 
a sound except the sighing wind and the swaymg 


Ghosts and Water-melons, 


branches of the old elm, mingling dolefully with the 
snoring of the hired man. 

The ghost laughed and shook his head by turns, 
and pointed his finger at Bobby, as if to say, 
marked youP^ 

Bobby began to imagine that Uncle Ben had been 
run over by a cart, or killed in some way that very 
afternoon, and that his ghost was really there. He 
was almost glad it was so, for he could endure the 
ghost, disagreeable as he felt his presence to be, much 
better than meet Uncle Ben alive, with that knife in 
his possession. 

So he shivered, and sweat, and reasoned himself 
more firmly into the belief that it was Uncle Ben’s 
ghost that was sitting on the chest. He was glad of 
it, for now he could go in the morning and find his 
knife, and hide that other water-melon before anyone 
else should pass that way. Still the presence of the 
ghost was very disagreeable to him ; and at last he 
ventured to go and get into the other bed with the 
hired man, rather than lie longer alone. 

The hired man stopped snoring, turned over, woke 
up, and asked Bobby what was the matter. 

“ There’s somebody up here,” said Bobby, ashamed 
to own that it was a ghost. 

“Who.? where?” and the hired man sat up and 
looked around. 


Ghosts and Water-melons. 


“On that chest,” said Bobby. “Don’t you see 
him ? ” 

“Ye — yesj I see him.” And, as if afraid to 
speak again, the hired man watched the blinking 
countenance of the stranger closely. 

After a moment he got out of bed carefully, saying 
in a whisper as he did so : 

“ How long has he been there, Bobby ? ” 

“ Ever so long,” was Bobby’s reply. “ Ain’t it a 
ghost.?” 

“ I guess so. I’ll find out, at all events,” and the 
bold fellow moved carefully towards it. 

He approached on tiptoe till he could almost touch 
it, and then he stopped. 

“ It’s a ghost, Bobby,” said he, “ sure enough ; but 
I’ll fix him!” 

He just drew back one arm, and planted a prodig- 
ious blow right in the ghost’s stomach ; and you 
ought to have seen that ghost jump I 

It went almost out of the window at one leap ; but 
fell short, on the floor, and lay as if dead. The hired 
man went boldly back and got into bed, remarking : 

“ That’s one of the ghosts we read about, Bobby ; 
I guess he won’t trouble us any more ! ” 

Bobby did not quite understand it. He began to 
think that Uncle Ben might be still living ; but he 
went to sleep again, at last, and the next time he 


Ghosts and Water-melons. 


awoke it was morning. It was daylight, and the hired 
man had gone down-stairs. He looked for the ghost. 
There he lay, sure enough, very quiet on the floor ; 
but, after all, it was only a bag of feathers ! 

So Bobby felt sure he would have to meet Uncle 
Ben, and that everybody would know all about it ; and 
he felt very miserable all day, waiting for him to come. 
He did not go near James Scott, for he felt that it 
was largely owing to him that he had got into trouble. 
It wasn’t at all likely that he could or would help him 
out of it. He wanted dreadfully to go and look for 
his knife, but would no more have done that than he 
would have gone and drowned himself. Indeed, he 
did think rather seriously of doing the last; but, 
being a good swimmer, he supposed the probabilities 
would be against his sinking; and besides, he still 
had a regard for the feelings of his mother. 

It was a miserably long day, but after all Uncle Ben 
did not come. What could it mean ? Bobby did not 
know, but he went to bed and slept better the next 
night. And the next day his fears began to wear 
away. It was night again, and still Uncle Ben had 
not come. 

The third morning Bobby was almost himself again. 
He was resolved, now, to go and look for his knife. 
It must be that Uncle Ben had not found it. If he 


Ghosts and Water-melons. 


had, he would certainly have made it known before 
this. He was quite sure, too, that Uncle Ben could 
not have known who those two boys were. So he 
went, with a lightened heart, early in the day, to look 
for his knife. 

Of course he took a roundabout way, that he might 
keep as far from Uncle Ben’s house as possible. 
Judge of his surprise and relief when he saw, on 
coming in sight of the spot, not Uncle Ben, but a 
dilapidated scarecrow. It stood leaning against the 
fence, where, having served its time. Uncle Ben had 
probably left it, neglected and forgotten. Being ar- 
rayed in one of Uncle Ben’s old coats, it did have a 
strange resemblance to the old man himself. 

“ It’s all right, after all,” thought Bobby, and he 
hurried confidently forward to pick up his knife. But 
imagine now the surprise and fright that came into 
Bobby’s soft eyes when he found that his knife was 
not there ! Neither the knife, the water-melon, nor the 
water-melon rinds 1 All were gone. 

Without stopping long, Bobby turned to retrace his 
steps. But as he did so some one called to him. It 
was Uncle Ben; and he stopped again and stood 
mute. 

“ I’ve been waiting to see ye, Bobby,” said the old 
man, coming up. “ I reckoned you’d come for your 


Ghosts and Water-melons. 


knife, and I thought you’d rather see me here thai^ 
have me bring it home to ye. Of course I knew you’d 
been here, when I found this, but it wasn’t likely 
you’d come alone. I’m sorry you’ve been in bad 
company, Bobby. Your father and mother think 
you’re a good boy, and I don’t want them to think 
any other way. Of course you don’t want them to 
think any other way, either, do you, Bobby ? ” And 
the old man looked kindly down into the soft eyes. 

Bobby made out to say that he did not. 

“ That’s the reason, Bobby, why I didn’t bring the 
knife home. I thought I’d better give it to ye here. 
Now take it, and don’t for the world ever say a word 
to anybody how you lost it. And I want ye to come 
down to the melon-patch with me, for I’m going to 
send a nice mountain-sweet over to your mother.” 

Bobby took his knife, and followed Uncle Ben, 
unable to utter a word. As they went along, the old 
man talked to him of his corn and his pumpkins, just 
as if there was no reason in the world why he and 
Bobby should not be on the best of terms. He 
seemed to have quite forgotten that Bobby had ever 
stolen anything from him. Arrived at the patch he 
picked off one of the finest melons, as large as the 
boy could carry, and, after a little more talk, sent him 
with it to his mother. 


Ghosts and Water-melons. 


And so, after all, Bobby’s heart never felt lighter 
than it did that morning, after he had left Uncle Ben. 
He had at last found words to thank him, and to say 
that he was very sorry for what he had done, but 
scarce more. But that was all Uncle Ben wanted j 
and, so long as he lived, after that, he had no truer 
friend among the neighbor’s boys than Bobby Tatman. 




A DAY ON LAKE CUPSUPTUC. 


J ACK DURAND lifted his oars, and, leaning back 
in the boat, shouted, from the depths of his capa- 
cious lungs : 

“ Hal-loo!” 

For an instant there was silence. Then from the 
immense boulders on the other shore of the lake came 
back the words : 

“ Hal-loo ! hal-loo ! 

A second more and the wooded hill beyond caught 
up the sound and reverberated with the call. 

An exclamation of surprise burst from the delighted 
party. 

“ Wait ! ” said Jack, impatiently. 

And, in the same moment, the rugged side of old 
Bald Mountain re-echoed with the shout : 


A Day Oil Lake Cupsuptuc. 

Hal-loo ! hal-loo ! ” 

Yes, he’s here, the same old fellow ! Nick o’ the 
Woods, you know, Antoinette,” said the oarsman, 
turning to the young girl who sat in the stern of the 
trim little boat. ^ 

“ Pooh ! ” interrupted Antoinette’s brother Ned ; 
“ I suppose Jack thinks the old fellow recognizes his 
voice, just because he and Cousin James used to 
howl around here five or six years ago ! But I guess 
the young Nicks are just as glad to see me 1 I’m 
Ned! You know me?” he called. “Don’t you? 
don’t you?” 

“ Don’t you — don’t you ! ” repeated the echoes. 

“ There ! ^ what did I say ? ” exclaimed the de- 
lighted boy. 

“Nonsense,” answered Jack, quizzically; “they’re 
only saying they don't chew," 

But Cousin Jack had yet to learn that Ned was not 
so easily disconcerted. The boy cast one quick 
glance from his honest eyes into the face of the young 
man and then coolly replied : 

“ Oh 1 I s'posed they did ! There seems to be 
quite a number of spruce trees round here, but gum’s 
not very plenty.” 

Antoinette laughed, and just at this moment another 
boat rounded the point of land which almost hid the 


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A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

mouth of the beautiful Lackavvana Stream, and Prof. 
James and his young wife, rowed by a stalwart guide, 
floated out on the deep blue waters of the lake. 

“WhaPs all this shouting?” asked Mrs. James. 
“ I should think there were about twenty people out 
here.” 

The boys are only trying the echoes,” replied her 
husband. “But come, now,” he called to the young 
people in the other boat, “ you’d better keep quiet 1 
Here’s where they caught a big trout yesterday.” 

Instantly his hearers were seized with an irresisti 
ble desire to try the sport themselves ; and as there 
was before them a long summer’s day, in which the 
trip to Birch Island might be made several times, if 
need be, the little party cast anchor, and the boats 
were presently rocking just above the narrows which 
connect the Cupsuptuc and the Mooselucmaguntic — 
two of the most beautiful lakes of Northwestern 
Maine. 

Some years before this, Jack Durand and his older 
brother James had spent several of their summer va- 
cations in this wild and picturesque region. Then 
the “ Indian Rock Hotel,” which, notwithstanding its 
high-sounding name, was only a rude log-cabin, fur- 
nished the only accommodations which the venture- 
some sportsman found in this secluded wilderness. 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

Now the more pretentious walls of the “ Bald Eagle,” 
and “ Camp Kennebago,” offer hospitable entertain- 
meet to the tourist who penetrates the forest to this 
net-work of lakes and streams, which are unsurpassed 
in their facilities for trout-fishing and agreeable camp- 
life. 

Hither the brothers had come once more to spend 
the last few weeks of summer; Prof. James bringing 

with him his young wife, in order to give her a breath 

% 

of the spruce and pine, and a glimpse of the moun- 
tain-ranges which shut in these secluded waters ; while 
Jack, fresh from college, had undertaken the special 
charge of his two young cousins, Ned and Antoinette. 

Now this Cousin Jack had not only been the 
“ crack ” oarsman of his class at Harvard, but was 
also an experienced sportsman. He had camped 
among the Adirondacks, and fished in the 'far-away 
Canadian waters. He possessed the complete outfit 
of the scientific angler, and was versed in all the lore 
and craft of the forest. 

Do you wonder, boys and girls of the Wide Awake, 
that our Ned executed a series of light gymnastics, 
when Cousin Jack presented him with an eight-ounce 
bamboo rod, and invited him to “ go a-fishing ? ” or 
that Antoinette was any the less pleased with her 
Scotch plaid boating-suit, and her own invitation to 
spend a few weeks among the lakes ? 


A Day On LaJze Cupsuptuc, 

At the very moment of which we write, Ned was 
experimenting upon the flexibility of this same bam- 
boo pole, while Cousin Jack was trying to improvise 
one from an old, broken, and dislocated rod, for the 
use of Antoinette, who seemed to have been over- 
looked in the outfit. 

But Antoinette had made up her mind to catch a 
trout. In fact, she had mentioned this determination 
to her young friends before leaving home. Her repu- 
tation depended upon it. She took her fishing-rod 
from Cousin Jack’s hand, and examined it with a 
critical eye. 

“ Seems to me the big end of mine is broken off,” 
she said, looking first at her own rod and then at 
Ned’s. 

“ Yes, the butt is gone,” replied Ned, patronizingly. 
“ However, that makes it all the better for you, so 
much the lighter, you know.” 

“ And I haven’t any reel, have I ? ” continued An- 
toinette, anxiously. 

“No,” replied Cousin Jack; “there is no place to 
put one on, and you will do just as well without.” 

“ But how am I going to get my fish in, if I should 
catch one ? ” 

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” replied Ned; “the 
thing is to catch ’em I ” 

Antoinette meekly dropped her line overboard with 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

the others, and for twenty minutes they all sat in sol- 
emn silence. 

“ How do you tell when you have a bite ? ” asked 
the would-be sportswoman at last. 

“ Oh, if a trout gets hold of your line you’ll know 
it,” answered Cousin Jack, with a smile. “ Seems to 
me I had a nibble then myself,” he added, in a whisper. 
Then there was another long silence. 

“ Oh, my ! I’ve got one ! I’ve got one ! ” suddenly 
shouted Antoinette. “ Goodness ! how he pulls ! ” 

“ Draw him up ! draw him up ! ” exclaimed Jack. 
“ Don’t let your line slacken — steady — quick there 
— play out — play out ! You’ll lose him ! ” 

“ I shall ! I know I shall ! ” cried Antoinette, 
trembling with excitement, and convulsively holding 
her rod in one hand, while she drew in the line with 
the other, twisting it around her fingers, snarling and 
tangling it ; while, every time the line slackened, the 
trout darted off as though he had escaped. 

But no ! there was a sudden flash upon the surface 
of the water, and there, for an instant, they all saw 
the speckled beauty, gleaming in the sunlight. 

“ Oh, he’s a monster ! ” exclaimed Jack. “ Let out ! 
He’ll hit the boat and flap himself off ! ” 

How could she let out that snarl of line, twisted and 
tangled around the fingers of her gloves ? 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

“ No business to wear gloves a-fishing ! ” ejaculated 
Ned. 

Cousin Jack evidently thought so too; but he cour- 
teously refrained from expressing his sentiments, 
although he felt sure the trout would escape under 
such unsystematic treatment. 

The line perceptibly slackened. 

“ I’ve lost him ! ” moaned Antoinette. She dropped 
her rod, and, pulling off her gloves, commenced draw- 
ing in the line, hand over hand, when, to her surprise, 
she suddenly felt again the strain of the trout upon it. 

Both her companions now began to give off orders 
in the most bewildering way, and poor Antoinette, 
who didn’t have the least idea of what “ Taut ! ” 
meant, and who couldn’t hava obeyed if she had, 
drew in her line in a very jerky and spasmodic man- 
ner. Again there was a flash upon the surface of the 
lake. Cousin J ack grew desperate. He forgot all the 
rules and theories of the scientific angler. He made 
a frantic plunge with the dip-net — but Antoinette, by 
a most unexpected jerk, suddenly landed the trout in 
the bottom of the boat, without any of Jack’s assist- 
ance. 

There it lay, with its glowing, salmon-tinted breast, 
its crimson-tipped fins, and its gold and vermilion 
spots, seeming still thoroughly alive. 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

Hold him ! hold him ! ” cried Antoinette. “ He’ll 
go overboard ! He will ! ” 

“ Be quiet, Antoinette,” said Jack, authoritatively, 
“ and hand me that knife ! You’ll be overboard 
yourself I ” 

But the trout proved very agile, and it required both 
of Jack’s hands to hold him. 

“ There, Antoinette, you take this knife and strike 
him two or three times on the nose — hard ! ” 

“ Me ? ” gasped Antoinette. 

“ Yes. Kill him — quick now ! ” 

“AT/// him?” 

“ What do you expect to do with him ? ” asked 
Ned. “ Take this knife. You must, Antoinette. 
You don’t want to lose him, do you ? ” 

No, she didn’t ; but she only exclaimed : “ O Ned, 
you/'' 

“No, sir,” said Ned. “Every man kills his own 
fish.” 

Antoinette took the knife. She struck the trout upon 
the head. It made a piteous sound, and its eyes started 
from their sockets. For a moment it lay quivering 
and palpitating in the bottom of the boat, and then it 
ceased to struggle. 

“He’s a beauty,” said Cousin Jack, producing his 
pocket-scales and tape measure. “ Nineteen inches 










A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

long, and weighs just three and a quarter pounds. 
You did nobly, Antoinette.” 

“Yes,” added Ned, patting her on the shoulder, “ a 
boy couldn’t have done better.” 

But Antoinette sat quietly down in the stern of the 
boat and — cried. 

“Well, Ned,” said Cousin Jack, “if you are going 
to be reporter on this trip get out your note-book. 
Here is something worthy of record. To think that 
Antoinette should catch the very first trout ! Three 
pounds and a quarter ! Put that down, Ned. And 
you must state that this is no laker nor togue^ but a gen- 
uine spotted trout, the salmo fontenalis of the brook.” 

“ Oh, my ! ” said Ned. “ Spell it.” 

“ No, sir,” replied Jack. “ Every man must spell his 
own fish j mustn’t he, Antoinette ? ” 

Antoinette smiled through her tears, and Ned did 
his own spelling. But when, a short time afterward. 
Cousin Jack received a most distressed and anxious 
letter from the boy’s mother, asking what in the world 
Ned meant by saying that Antoinette had “ caught 
the Salmyfontynolus,” and begging him, if there was 
any epidemic prevailing at Indian Rock, to bring the 
children home at once. Jack concluded that he was 
in some degree responsible for Ned’s orthography. 

“Come, boys,” called Prof. James, “we can’t any 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

of us beat Antoinette, and we don’t want to do any- 
thing less, so let’s be moving.” 

The anchors were lifted, and the oars wet anew in 
the waters of the blue Cupsuptuc. On towards Birch 
Island they went, rounding many a picturesque point 
of land, and exploring many a secluded cove, whose 
shores presented here, perchance, a sandy beach, and 
there -abrupt, rocky ledges, covered with strange 
lichens and the most infinitely-varied mosses. 

It was high noon when they reached their destina- 
tion. The cargo was very unceremoniously unladen ; 
and, striking into a tangled path beset with under- 
brush and briary raspberry bushes — which shook 
down their luscious ripe fruit upon the straggling pro- 
cession as it passed — Jack led his companions to the 
camp. 

“ The camp ! How they laughed and shouted as 
they saw it. 

“ Don’t touch one thing,” said Ned, “ till I’ve made 
an inventory of the contents of this establishment 1 ” 
and once more the boy produced his note-book. 

This is what afterward appeared upon its pages : 

CAMP NO. I. 

WHAT WAS IN IT. 

One box, 2 chairs, one X legged stool, one 3 


A Day On Lake Cupsufituc. 


legged stool with 2 legs, one tallow candle, one 
bucket, one jug, one spoon, one hair-pin, one water- 
pail, one padlock, one Harpers’ Weekly, one broken 
bottle, one looking-glass, one gun-barrel, 3 frying pans, 
one fork without any handle, one coffee-pot, one ink- 
stand, one palm-leaf hat, one burnt match, and one 
long iron thing. 


CAMP NO. II. 

Ditto — besides some old clothes. 

In fact, the camp at Birch Inland consisted of two 
small and very rudely-built log-houses, with roofs of 
bark, through which square openings had been cut 
to serve as chimneys. Each house had its rough 
stone fire-place, its long bunk, and a few cooking 
utensils, as Ned had intimated. 

This was not exactly Mrs. James’ ideal of a “ lodge 
in some vast wilderness ; ” but she heroically deter- 
mined to make the best of it. As for Antoinette and 
the boys, they were wild with delight. The guide had 
speedily gathered a quantity of fresh spruce boughs. 
These he cut into small, uniform pieces, with which 
he filled the bunks, dexterously arranging them into 
fragrant and elastic beds. Upon the top of these he 
tossed the blankets and air-pillows, and then, with a 
hearty “ Good luck to you ! ” the man took his leave, 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

promising to return on the following morning with an 
extra hand to take the party up to the falls of the 
Cupsuptuc River, where he “ reckoned ” they would 
find “tall fishing.” 

“ I declare,” exclaimed Jack, “ I don’t know whether 
I’d rather go to bed or have dinner.” 

“You’d better stir round and get some kindling 
wood, my lad,” answered Prof. James, “or you won’t 
be allowed either privilege.” 

“ I, sir ? I’d have you understand that I am cook ! 
No, Mrs. James,” he said, as that little lady sat hope- 
lessly gazing at the frying-pan, in which w^ere the dry 
and solid remains of some previous repast ; “ no, this 
is my department. You and Antoinette unpack the 
baskets and set the table. Prof. James will oblige us 
by furnishing a table. You’ll find some boards lying 
around in the forest somewhere,” Jack added, turning 
to his brother, “ and a hammer, no doubt, and some 
nails. Come, Ned, bring the pork and potatoes and 
that frying-pan. We’ll have the fire in the other 
camp. Keep the dining-room as cool and free from* 
carnivorous insects as possible, children,” he re- 
marked, as he made his exit ; “ and isn’t there some 
Indian meal ? I used to know how to make a ban- 
nockP 

“Go along with your trout. Jack,” said Mrs. James 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

“ We don’t want any of your bannocks. Here’s plenty 
of fresh bread and butter.” 

“Well,” replied Jack, “this camp is the White Owl, 
and ours is the Black Bat. Now remember, and don’t 
get them mixed.” 

So Jack and Ned retired to the “ Black Bat.” A 
blazing fire speedily crackled upon the stones. Jack 
made a vigorous attack upon the frying pan, and with 
the butcher’s knife succeeded in scraping off the most 
prominent remains of the last feast. Then he rinsed 
the offending article in hot water, and, by an unani- 
mous vote of the house, the frying-pan was pronounced 
clean. 

Thin slices of pork were soon sizzling over the 
coals ; and, by the time the potatoes were washed and 
sliced, the coffee-pot, which was suspended on a rod 
over the fire, also gave signs of ebulition. 

“ How tantalizingly odoriferous,” remarked Mrs. 
James, putting her head in at the door. 

“ Back to the White Owl ! ” shouted Jack. 

“ Oh, no ! Come in ! ” said Ned, who was thought- 
fully contemplating the row of bottles on the shelf. 
“ Come in. Cousin Helen, and select your relishes. 
Here’s Leicestershire sauce, ammonia, oil of penny- 
royal, mixed pickles, Spanish blacking, and a few sar 
dines. Which had you rather have ? ” 


A Day On Lake Ciipsuptuc. 

Jack brandished the butcher-knife in a threatening 
manner; and Ned retreated into the open air. 

In the meantime Prof. James had succeeded in im- 
provising a table ; while Antoinette unpacked the box 
of crockery-ware, and the lunch baskets which had 
been prepared for them at Indian Rock ; and Mrs. 
James, going quietly out, had picked a quart of deli- 
cious, cool raspberries, which formed a most accepta- 
ble dessert. 

“ I don’t know as we can have the cook at the first 
table,” said Antoinette, as Jack, turning down the 
sleeves of his blue flannel shirt, bent his tall figure to 
enter the door-way of the White Owl. 

“Very well,” said Cousin Jack; and he placed the 
two-legged stool up against the wall, and, taking a 
board in his lap, spread out a napkin upon it, and 
ordered his several dishes. Thus it happened, as it 
usually did when Cousin Jack chose, that everybody 
waited upon him. 

With appreciative appetites, which a day’s exercise 
in this upland lake region never fails to give, the 
party sat down to their repast. The cook had cer- 
tainly done justice to Antoinette’s trout, and they all 
did justice to Cousin Jack’s cooking. 

After dinner Jack, weary with his morning’s exer- 
cise, stretched himself upon the green spruce boughs. 


A Day On Lake Cupsiiptuc. 


The remainder of the party went out to explore the 
island, Prof. James and his wife collecting new speci- 
mens for their herbarium, while Antoinette made a 
sketch of the “Black Bat,” and Ned busied himself in 
cutting envelopes and sheets of paper from the birch 
bark which grew in abundance near the camp. 
Towards night the fire was replenished, and Ned was 
sent down to the shore for a fresh supply of water. 

“ Hurry up ! ” called Antoinette after him. “ And 
don’t stop to fish ! ” 

This last remark was unfortunate. It suggested 
glowing possibilities to Ned. Pie took the water-pail, 
and his fishing-rod also, and made his way to the 
shore. Half an hour passed, but Ned did not return. 

“I begin to feel anxious about him,” said Mrs. 
James. “Hadn’t you better look him up. Jack.?” 
and Jack lazily sauntered toward the shore. 

The sun was already sinking in the west, and Ned 
knew that sundown was the proverbial time for fish- 
ing. He had also, that afternoon, noted a rocky 
point of land that jutted out into the lake, and which 
seemed to him “just the place to cast a fly.” He 
only wanted to get there, all by himself, and see what 
he could do. “ Cousin Jack is very well in his place, 
but a fellow don’t like to be bossed, you know.” Thus 
thinking it over, Ned decided to try his luck. “ If 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc, 

they don’t bite, I’ll go right back with the water,” he 
said j “ and if they bite lively. I’ll stop a few minutes 
and surprise them with some trout for supper.” 

So, putting the water-pail down on the rocks, Ned 
swung his line into the air, and drew the white and 
mottled flies slowly across the surface of the water. 
Once, twice, thrice — suddenly there was a flash ! Ned 
swung his line sharply in, and — yes, there was the 
trout — a little fellow nine or ten inches long — se- 
curely hooked ! 

The boy was ecstatic. Lacking a creel, he slipped 
the fish into his coat-pocket, and sprang farther out 
upon the rocks which formed a shallow basin in front 
of him, and beyond which he cast his flies. Bite after 
bite followed in quick succession ; but they were only 
“ shiners,” and Ned tossed them back into the water 
in disgust. Finally there was a sharp, quick rise. 
A trout this time, sure ! Ned gave an exultant 
spring, but the wet stones proved treacherous. There 
was a sudden splash, and when the commotion subsided 
our young friend might have been observed sitting in 
the shallow water, with a broken fishing-rod in his 
hand, and the end of his line securely hooked to a 
snag just visible on the surface of the lake. 

Ned didn’t get up — he sat there. He was in a 
watery mood. His bamboo rod — his heart’s dearest 


A Day On Lake Cupsupiue. 

treasure — was broken short off at the second joint. 
There really didn’t seem to be much in the world 
worth living for ! 

A hearty “ Haw ! haw ! ” disturbed the boy’s revery. 

Ned sprang up. To “feel bad” was one thing; 
but to let Cousin Jack see him “feel bad” was 
quite another story. 

“ Well ! upon my word ! What’s this ? A por- 
poise ? ” 

“ No, it wasn’t a-purpose. I slipped ! ” said Ned 
shortly. 

“ But where’s that pail of water, young man ? ” 

“ Most anywheres ’round here, I should say. I find 
it handy enough ; ” and with the streams trickling 
from every seam in his clothing, Ned scrambled back 
to the shore ; while the yellow wooden pail, which had 
in some way been launched during the accident, went 
serenely bobbing up and down on the waves, across 
the lake. 

“ Here’s your water,” said Ned, as he came drip- 
ping up to the camp; “but you’ll have to put me 
through the lemon squeezer to get it.” 

Mrs. James and Antoinette uttered an exclamation 
of alarm. 

“Don’t be frightened,” said Jack; “he isn’t hurt 
in the least — only I don’t see but that he will have to 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

retire to the Black Bat and wrap himself up in a blan- 
ket while his clothes are drying. Sorry to dispense 
with your company, my boy, but it can’t be helped.” 

“ Oh, but he’ll get his death a-cold,” said Mrs. 
James, anxiously. 

“ If we only had some Jamaica ginger,” suggested 
Antoinette. 

“ I’ll fix him,” said Jack, “don’t worry; the Black 
Bat is an establishment of vast extent and unfathomed 
resources.” 

It was but a short time before Ned reappeared, 
grotesquely dressed in a pair of huge yellow duck 
overalls, and Antoinette’s navy-blue water-proof, belted 
with a leather strap around his waist. His head was 
tied up in a red bandana handkerchief, while his feet 
seemed lost in the huge proportions of Jack’s rubber 
boots. Altogether, he bore a striking resemblance to 
the old colored pictures of “ Sinbad the Sailor.” 

Mrs. James commenced to turn the pockets of 
Ned’s coat, which was drying before the fire. 

“ Mercy on us I What’s this ? ” she exclaimed, as 
her hand touched something dead and cold. 

“ A trout, sure as you live ! ” said Ned. “ It must 
have got into my pocket while I was in the water.” 

“ O Ned ! ” exclaimed Antoinette. 

“ Why, it must, somehow, by hook or crook.” 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc, 

“ Mostly by hook, I guess,” replied Antoinette. 

“Well, as you like it.” And Ned, stirring his 
tumbler of hot lemonade, commenced singing : 

“ Three fishers went sailing out into the west.” 

“ But you can’t be one of the party,” said Prof. 
James. “ Antoinette, you and Helen and I will take 
the boat and go around to Toothacre’s Cove. The 
deer used to come down there to drink. Perhaps we 
shall see one.” 

Ned looked longingly after the party; but he be- 
came quite reconciled to his fate when Cousin Jack, 
after making preparations for supper, sat down and 
offered to trade his own second-best fishing-rod for 
Ned’s gutta-percha watch-chain. 

“Solemn earnest.? ” asked Ned, incredulously. 

“ Yes, solemn earnest,” replied Jack, and Ned once 
more was happy. 

The evening shades were beginning to gather when 
Prof. James and his companions returned from their 
exploring expedition. The air had grown chilly, and 
the forest without looked dark and gloomy. But the 
boys had a bright, cheery fire burning in the camp, 
around which the little party gathered in the old-time 
fashion, and drank their tea, while Jack and Prof. 
James told marvelous stories of their earlier experi- 
ence among these same woods and waters. 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

“ There’s only one thing that I am afraid of,” said 
Mrs. James, as the fires were extinguished and they 
were about to separate for the night, “ that is, bugs 
and bears.” 

“ How many did you say .? ” laughingly inquired 
her husband. 

“Oh, she means bug-bear; that’s one, and usually 
less than one,” interrupted Jack. 

“ But what should we do,” continued Mrs. James, 
not deigning to notice Jack’s remark, if anything 
should happen to Antoinette and me, and you all 
sound asleep over there in the Black Bat ! ” and she 
looked anxiously around the walls, as though she 
hoped to discover a bell-rope somewhere. 

“ I’ll tell you,” said Ned. “ Come out here. Jack, 
with me.” 

There was a whispered consultation, and then they 
heard Jack say : 

“ Bright boy ! bright boy ! ” 

When their mysterious arrangement was complete^ 
it consisted of the big tin dish-kettle, through the two 
handles of which a rope was drawn, and fastened at 
each end to some nails in the wall. Then a large 
stone, fastened to another rope, was suspended 
directly over the pan, the rope being carried up 
through a hole in the roof, then across the narrow 


A Day On Lake Cupsuptuc. 

space which separated the two camps, down the other 
chimney, and secured to a nail at Mrs. James’ right 
hand. 

** There, madame, we shall await your orders. 
Just try it ! ” 

Mrs. James, who had no idea of what was at the 
end of her bell-rope, suddenly loosed the knot, and 
down went the stone, tin kettle and all, among the 
other pots and pans in the fire-place, with a crash that 
made them all jump. 

“ I shall feel perfectly safe now,” said Mrs. James, 
as Jack again arranged the alarm. “ Ned, you de- 
serve a place in the United States Signal Service ! ” 

An hour later and they were all sleeping as peace- 
fully as though in their own beds at home. Ned was 
the last to close his eyes, but he, too, finally dozed 
off, dreaming that he was rowing up the wild Cupsup- 
tuc River ; while a black bear sat in the stern steering 
with a paddle, and countless gray-bearded Indians, all 
dressed in navy-blue water-proofs, stood along the 
shore, offering him fishing-rods of split bamboo, as 
the green boats glided by. 



CARRIER PIGEONS. 


HE tribe of pigeons includes over one hundred 



jL that are domesticated. A love of their birth- 
place is common to all these birds, but one variety 
has the instinct to an intense degree, and, owing to 
its long neck and strong breast muscles, has also the 
power of very prolonged flight. The attachment to 
home in birds of this species has been strengthened 
by training, generation after generation, to make them 
serve as trusty messengers for men, and the results 
are of no little interest and importance. 

The birds so trained are called carrier-pigeons, or 
homing-birds^ and they are raised in great numbers in 
different countries. The method of training is to 
take the young birds a short distance from home, and 
then release them. Those that fail to find their way 
back are rejected as too stupid to be worth training \ 




% 



Carrier Pigeons. 


but the others are taken out again a little further, and 
so the distance is gradually increased. 

In Turkey, where this training is carried to great 
perfection, they begin by taking the birds in covered 
baskets half a mile, and then throwing them up into 
the air ; and continue to increase the distance up to 
one thousand miles. After that, the little couriers 
can fly anywhere throughout the kingdom. 

Belgium also does an extensive business with these 
birds, and societies in that country possess nearly a 
million of them. On Saturdays special trains run 
there, exclusively for pigeons. Each train consists of 
twenty wagons, with fifty baskets in a wagon, and 
about forty pigeons in a basket, making 40,000 pigeons 
in a train. As the train goes on, the birds are re- 
leased at different stations to the great delight of 
spectators, and the doves that make the best speed 
homeward are selected for long journeys. 

In Antwerp the pigeon business is one of the most 
thriving industries of the city, and every year there 
are pigeon matches there, when seventy or eighty 
are sent on races to London. 

An English paper of last July tells of the Interna- 
tional and All-England Pigeon-races that had just 
taken place, when seventy-eight birds were flown at 
the Alexandra Palace, for Brussels. It was at eleven 


Carrier Pigeons, 


o’clock in the forenoon that they were thrown up, and 
the first of them reached Brussels at ten minutes past 
four in the afternoon. Thirty miles an hour is the 
ordinary rate of a carrier-pigeon’s traveling, but they 
often fly eighty miles in an hour — in some cases one 
hundred and twenty-five miles in an hour — and fre- 
quently they go from Paris, Lisbon, Brussels, and 
Rome even, to England. 

News, of course, is the life of newspapers. And 
sometimes reporters find that they can send tidings 
more speedily by carrier-pigeons than by the tele- 
graph. So they take these birds with them, and send 
them off with despatches from the nearest window in 
a court-room or public hall, or toss them out of the 
railway car or steamboat at full speed. The editors 
connected with these reporters have pigeon-cots at 
their offices, and machinery that sets a bell in motion 
whenever a bird comes in. 

Some time since the editor of an Antwerp journal 
sent a reporter to Brussels for the king’s speech, and 
with him a couple of carrier-pigeons to bring it with 
the utmost speed. When the reporter arrived at 
Brussels he went into a restaurant, and, giving his 
pigeons into the charge of a waiter, called for break- 
fast. He was kept waiting a long while, but finally a 
most delicate fricassee rewarded his patience. The 


Carrier Pigeons. 


repast over, he settled his bill, and then asked for his 
carrier-pigeons. “ Pigeons ! ” cried the waiter, “ why, 
you have eaten them ! ” 

During the recent Franco-Prussian war, when Paris 
was shut off from the rest of the world from October, 
1870, until March, 1871, the besieged established 
a regular mail by means of balloons, and three 
millions of letters were sent off by this aerial post. 
But while any wind would blow a balloon away from 
Paris, as it was only a very special current of air 
that would bring one into the city, the balloon post 
was of service only for giving news; and the be- 
sieged taxed their ingenuity to the utmost to find 
out some way of receiving communications from the 
outside world. A few brave foot-messengers made 
their way through the enemies’ line with tiny dis- 
patches, written in cipher, concealed within the hol- 
low of an artificial tooth, or, at times, under an in- 
cision made in the skin j learned dogs were carried 
off in balloons, and, most ingenious of all, little 
globes of blown glass were made to imitate to per- 
fection the froth bubbles on the surface of the 
river, that flows from central France into the cap- 
ital. But the secret of the tooth leaked out through 
a journal, the dogs never found their way back, and 
frost setting in destroyed all the bubbles on the river. 


Cart Ur Pigeons. 


Happily, some one thought then of carrier-pigeons ; 
and the birds proved to be both friends in need and 
in very deed. One single pigeon brought into Paris 
during the siege five hundred pages of official dis- 
,patches, and fifteen thousand private dispatches. 

Letters sent by carrier-pigeons are not, as some 
may imagine, and as_ the ancient custom was, tied 
around the neck, nor tucked under a wing. But they 
are written in cipher, or some kind of short-hand, on 
very thin vellum, and this is wound around the bare 
part of the bird’s leg, and firmly fastened with fine 
sewing-silk ; or the slip is secured by means of fine silk 
to the centre tail-feather, which keeps very much the 
same position whether the bird is on the wing or at 
rest. The number of the bird, or the time of its being 
flown, is sometimes stamped on one of the other feath- 
ers. During the siege of Paris a way was found out 
of using microscopic photography so successfully that a 
printed sheet, fifty-four inghes long, and thirty-two 
inches wide, containing thirty-two thousand words, was 
reduced to an area of two inches long and one and one- 
fourth inches wide, and impressed on a substance 
that weighed only about three-quarters of a grain. 
Each pigeon carried twenty of these leaves, which 
were read by magnifying them on the principle of 
the magic lantern. Three hundred and sixty-three 





4 


-0 




I 

j 


I 

« 

i 


I 

i 


‘ 


■ 

1 




3 



Carrier Pigeons. 


pigeons were sent out of Paris, and fifty-seven of them 
returned. The return of a pigeon created, of course, 
a great sensation in the besieged city, and an engrav- 
ing has been published, representing the once gay 
capital as a woman in mourning, anxiously watching, 
like Noah’s family in the ark, for the return of the 
dove. An American gentleman who was in the city 
during the siege, has published his journal of the 
time, called Shut up in Paris. On the 25th of Octo- 
ber he wrote that news had come in by pigeon-post, 
and adds : 

“ One feels a real affection for these little birds, as 
one watches them coming in. There is something 
very pathetic in their wearied appearance and languid 
flight. The people are very kind to them, and some 
weep as they watch the faithful things alight on a roof 
to rest, and perhaps to take their latitude.” 

Again, the next month he writes : 

“ Two pigeons arrived to-day, bringing eleven hun- 
dred private dispatches. We examined these micro- 
scopic letters with intense anxiety.” The material on 
which the dispatches were printed, he says, “ is quite 
flexible, and entirely water-proof, and so light that it 
can be aflhxed to the leg of the bird without annoying 
or overweighting it. 

“M. Mangin, the inventor of the material, has 


Carrier Pigeons, 


even put the whole contents of a newspaper in a 
space which, as a Frenchman expresses it, is not 
larger than the end of Voltaire’s nose ! Another 
Frenchman, of Irish mixture, declared the letters 
were so invisible that they could hardly be seen ! ” 

Gambetta, a famous French statesman, just after 
Paris was besieged, escaped from the city in a balloon, 
and, though the balloon was seen by the Prussians 
and fired upon, he succeeded in joining his colleagues 
at Tours. A pigeon from his balloon returned to 
Paris on the 9th of October, but the message had been 
attached to the bird’s neck, and was lost on the way. 

When our courageous young countryman, Capt. 
Boyton, made his successful voyage across the English 
Channel, last May, in the Merriman Life-saving Suit, 
a steamer kept him company, and some of the quaint 
messages he shouted to the boat were written on thin 
slips of tissue paper, and sent by carrier-pigeonb to 
land. Capt. Boyton sent off in all twenty-nine car- 
rier-pigeons during this trip, and one of the last was 
to inform Queen Victoria of the good progress he was 
making. 

Since the Franco-Prussian war, the military men of 
both nations have given much attention to the scien- 
tific training of these birds, in order that they may be 
of service in future wars. 


Carrier Pigeons. 


The use of carrier-pigeons to some extent is very 
ancient. When Mark Antony was besieging Mutina, 
forty-three years before the Christian era, he had the 
exasperating sight of carrier-pigeons daily flying over 
the walls of the city to carry letters between his enemy 
Brutus, and the besieged. Ovid, a Roman poet who 
lived about the same time, relates how a victor in the 
Olympic games sent news of his success to his father 
by means of a carrier-pigeon, stained with purple. 
Carrier-pigeons were employed in the crusade of St. 
Louis in the thirteenth century. At the siege of Ley- 
den, in 1675, carrier-pigeons conveyed tidings to the 
famishing garrison that encouraged them to hold out. 
And when the siege was raised, the Prince of Orange 
decreed that the pigeons that had rendered such val- 
uable service, should be maintained for life at the 
public expense, and after death should be embalmed 
and preserved in the town-house as a perpetual token 
of gratitude. 

When the battle of Solway was fought between the 
English and the Dutch, on the 28th of May, 1672, as 
soon as the London man-of-war began to fire, some 
pigeons on board, that were great pets with the com- 
mander, flew away. The next day a great gale of 
wind drove the British fleet leagues away from the 
spot whence the pigeons took flight ; nevertheless, 


Carrier Pigeons. 


the day following back they came, in parties of three 
or four at a time. These birds, so far as is known, 
were common dove-cot pigeons. 

Audubon, our great ornithologist, thought that the 
passenger-pigeon could fly across the Atlantic in less 
than three days ; but it was objected that this could 
not be done unless the little tourist carried “ a wallet 
of rice under his wing,” or stopped for a meal on one 
steamer, and to roost on another. Since the death 
of Audubon, however, such great success has attended 
the efforts made in training these birds, that last year 
it was hoped that, when another summer came, a daily 
miniature mail would be established by means of 
them between Europe and America, the tiny carriers 
flying over the ocean between sunrise in one hemi- 
sphere and sunset in the other. 

It is very interesting work for both boys and girls 
to rear and train these doves as carriers. A writer in 
Good Things says ; 

“ The best way to begin keeping pigeons is, we be- 
lieve, to get birds which have not yet flown (in pairs, 
of course), to clip one wing in each bird, and then 
confine them and feed them well. Before they are 
first let fly, they should be kept on short commons 
for a little time, and then, if their home is well placed, 
they will be sure to return to it. 








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Carrier Pigeons, 


“ The birds will not breed unless they are let fly 
The home should be make as conspicuous as possible, 
and it is best to paint it white, on the top at all events. 
It must be kept very clean, and should be well aired. 
Each pair must have a bed-room to itself, and this 
must not face the door. There should also be sills or 
projections for them to loiter and strut and coo upon. 



Pigeon just from the egg-shell. 


Some people divide even these sills or ledges by par- 
titions, in order that the birds may not fight for strut- 
ting-places, which they will often do, in a manner that 
is amusing if hot carried too far. A dove-cot should 
have a sloping roof, and each little home should be 
from fifteen to eighteen inches wide, and not less than 
a foot across. Pigeons will eat grain of any kind, as 
farmers know to their sorrow, but there is nothing 
they like better than tares. 

“ The mother has two eggs at a time, and after they 


Carrier Pigeons. 


are produced she and the father together take fifteen 
days to hatch them. There are usually eight or nine 
pairs a year, and these are male and female. The 
birds must have hay or something of that kind for 
their nests, and, like most other birds, they like gravel j 
so you should spread some of it on the ground where 
they can easily get at it, and they should be carefully 
guarded against damp.” 




A NARROW ESCAPE. 



OW long ago exactly I cannot 
tell — but long enough for two 
little boys to have grown into 
two great men, and you can 
judge how long that must be as well 
as I — there lived in a gentleman’s 
family in England a pretty housemaid and an 
honest young coachman. And in course of time — 
how much time or how little I cannot say, for this 
is a matter in which it is not so easy to judge of 
time — the housemaid and the coachman fell in love. 
It was a very foolish thing to do, of course ; but 
people do foolish things in this world occasionally, 
even so foolish as that, and I don’t know any bet- 
ter way than for wise people, like you and me, to 


A Narrow Escape. 

look on and say, “ I'm so glad it was not 1 1 " and 
then walk off. 

The coachman’s name, by the way, was John, and 
the housemaid they called Susan. 

So one day, when Susan was standing in the gar- . 
den door with a clean white apron on, and a cruel 
pink ribbon in her hair, John came by with the 
silver-handled whip in his hand, which he was just 
going to polish up. Said he, “Susan, I don’t like 
these goings-on with the butler, and that’s the truth.” 

Said Susan, just turning her head so that the un- 
kindest bow in that merciless little pink ribbon shone 
like a star in her beautiful black hair, “ And what if 
I do take a walk with the butler of an evening when 
I like ? Is it any man’s business, John Jacobs ? ” 

“I don’t know as it is,” said John, reflectively; it 
had never struck him in that light before. He wished 
it were his business with all his heart, but he wouldn’t 
say so ; and Susan wished the same, you may be sure, 
but she couldrUt say so ; so he went away to the great 
coach-house with his whip, and Susan sat down on 
the steps with her thoughts. And so, pretty soon, 
when the honest coachman came back, the pretty 
housemaid was crying. 

Said John, “Why, Susan ! ” 

Said Susan, “ G-g-go away 1 ” 





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A Narrow Escape. 

Said John, “You don’t mean as you cared because 
I was cross to you ? ” 

Sobbed Susan, “ I d-d-don’t know-ow ! ” 

Said John, “ Susan, will you have me ? ” 

Said Susan, “Yes, I will.” 

Now, I’m not going to write you a love-story, 
because I don’t believe the editor would think that 
was proper; but I had to tell you about John and 
Susan, because that was the beginning of every- 
thing; and as a love-story always is the beginning 
of everything, perhaps the editor will excuse us this 
time. 

The long and short of it is, that the honest coach- 
man and the pretty housemaid were married. 

At least, that’s the short of it ; that generally is the 
short of it ; the long of it comes afterwards. 

The long of it came to John and Susan when their 
children came. Two at a time, to begin with ; twin 
boys ; “ beautiful ” boys, their mother said ; “ boun- 
cing ” boys, their fatheir said — and their names were 
Titus and Tam o’ Shanter. And before Titus and 
Tam were able to walk across the kitchen to the mo- 
lasses-jug on their own feet, dear me ! bless it I there 
was another! 

“But she’s a girl,” said John, “and won’t cost so 
much.” 


A Narrow Escape. 


For John had just reached that desperate point in 
a young man’s life when he first begins to suspect 
that it costs five times as much to support five people 
as it does to support one. This is a great discovery 
in domestic science, which you will observe, as you 
grow older, people seldom do make till they have five 
people to support. 

But then, you see, when the little girl (I think her 
name was Betty, but I cannot be quite sure) was be- 
ginning to talk, she had a little sister to talk to ; and 
that was serious. 

Said John, decidedly, “My dear, we never can 
manage it in the world. How’s one coachman’s 
wages to do all this?” 

Said Susan, dejectedly (for the baby and one twin 
had cried all night), “I don’t know, John. Can’t we 
go to America ? ” 

“And what should we do in America? ” said John. 

“ Live ! ” said Susan ; and her tired black eyes 
snapped. ^ 

Well, the long and short of that was, they came to 
Nebraska ; and here, perhaps, my story should prop- 
erly begin. 

So long ago as it takes for little boys to grow great 
men, it was not so easy to live in Nebraska as it is 
now, when the great land commissioner of the great 


A Narrow Escape, 


railroads hangs a buffalo’s head in every depot in Bos- 
ton, to show the world how much more delightful is 
the society of buffaloes than the society of Bostonians. 

When John, and Susan, and Titus, and Tam o’ Shan- 
ter, and Betty, and the new baby came to Nebraska, 
that plucky young state was, for the most part, an 
ugly, howling wilderness. 

In the thick of the wilderness Mr. and Mrs. John 
Jacobs dug out for themselves a home. Literally, 
they dug it out with their very own hands. Susan 
was a tough little woman, with stout hands and a 
stout heart, and she dug too. I think, if the truth 
must be told, she rather enjoyed leaving Titus and 
Tam with the other babies, — there’s no guessing how 
much care one baby will take of another till you’ve 
tried, — and taking an ax to help her husband fell 
trees and cut underbrush, or taking a hoe to hoe her 
row in the darling little garden, out of which they 
meant to make a living, if they died for it. 

It was onl'^ because they meant to, so very hard, I 
fancy, that they made the living without dying for it. 
It was almost worse, at first, than coachman’s wages 
in Mother England. There was the newness, and 
there was the homesickness, and there \yas the dis- 
tance from the market, and there was the bitter 
cold, and there was the blighting heat, and always 


A Narrow Escape 

there were the babies, and besides, there were the 
Indians. 

Yes, an Indian story. “Truly, honestly,’^ as my 
little friend Trotty would say, a live Indian story ; and 
though it isn’t a very long one, it is every word a true 
one. Most true things are not very long, in this 
world, unless you except the moral law or the multi- 
plication table, or a few such things as that. 

John, and Susan, and Tam, and Titus, and Betty, 
and the new baby, and the newest new baby (when it 
came) got along pretty well with everything else ; but 
it wasn't pleasant to see an Indian come walking by 
with a tomahawk just as you were quietly sitting down 
to supper ; and they got a little tired of sleeping with 
one ear open, listening for the awful, echoing sound 
of the cruel Indian war-cry ; and whatever might be 
urged against life as a coachman in England, at least 
it was a life in which one’s attention wasn’t called so 
frequently to the top of one’s head. 

“Mine is fairly sore,” laughed Susan, “with think- 
ing how it will feel to be scalped.” 

But Susan was such a brave little woman ! And if 
there is anything very much needed in this world, it 
is brave women. 

“ I’ll have a gun,” she said. So she had a gun. 
“ I’ll be a good shot,” she said. And quickly she be- 


A Narrow Escape. 


came as good a shot as John. And when John was 
at work in the woods or the garden, Susan gathered 
her brood about her in the house, and, lynx-eyed as a 
sentry, and fine-eared as a mother, mounted guard. 

Now, there came a time when nobody had seen any 
Indians for so long a while, that even the wise heart 
of the mother forgot to fear. So quickly we forget to 
feel keenly about anything in this world, if we do not 
see it, — an absent duty, or an absent friend, or an 
absent terror, — all alike they grow a trifle dim or dull. 

And one day, when Titus and Tam said, “Just one 
gallop on the prairie, mother, with old Jerusalem,” 
their mother said, “ Well, I don’t know,” and their 
father said, “ I guess I’d let ’em and the lynx eyes, 
and the keen ears, and the wise head of the mother 
said her not nay — and so it happened. 

Old Jerusalem was the big white horse; the faith- 
ful, ugly, grand old horse, that took steps almost as 
long as a kangaroo’s, and was more afraid of an In- 
dian than Titus and Tam. 

So Susan kissed Titus good-bye tenderly — for he 
was the good boy of those remarkable twins — and 
that was why they called him Titus ; and kissed Tam 
a little more tenderly still, because he wasn’t so good 
as Titus, and so had got called Tam ; and she said, 
“Hold on tight 1” and John came out and said, 


A Narrow Escape, 


“Come home pretty soon;” and Tam got on first, 
and Titus got on behind him, and Jerusalem gave 
one great bound, and away they shot, clinging with 
shining bare feet to Jerusalem’s white bare back — for 
they were magnificent little riders, seven years old 
now, and brave as cubs. 

Susan stood watching them after John had gone 
back to his work — stood watching long after they 
had swept away into the great, green, beautiful sea of 
the treacherous prairie grass. 

Uneasy ? Not exactly. Sorry she had let them 
go ? Hardly that. She was a sensible little woman ; 
and having done what she thought was right, had no 
idea of being troubled by it, till the time came. But 
still she stood watching, her hand above her eyes — 
this way — and she did not go into the house till the 
newest new baby had cried at least five minutes at 
the top of its new little lungs. 

Titus and Tam and Jerusalem got pretty far out on 
the beautiful, terrible prairie. How beautiful it was ! 
It did not seem as if it ever could be terrible if it 
tried. The green waves of the soft grass rolled mad- 
ly. The wind was high. The sun was so bright they 
could not look at it. The strong horse bounded with 
mighty leaps. The boys could feel the muscles quiv- 
ering and drawn tense in his soft, warm body, as they 


A Narrow Escape. 


clung. It was like being a horse yourself. They did 
ftot know which was horse and which was boy. They 
laughed because they could not help it, and shouted 
because they did not know it. Hi ! Hi ! O, the sun, 
and the mad grass, and the wild wind ! Hi I Hi ! 
Vi i-i ! Who could be two boys on such a prairie, on 
such a day, on such a horse, and not yell like little 
wildcats ? 

“ It’s pretty,” said Titus, softly, when they had got 
tired of yelling. 

“ You bet 1 ” said Tam, loudly. “ Hi ! Hi ! Hi ! 
Yi-i-ee-ee ! ” , 

I guess we ought to go back,” said Titus, pretty 
soon ; Titus was so much more likely to remember to 
be good. 

“ O, no,” said Tam, who was generally a little bad 
when there was a chance. 

“ Father said to come home pretty soon,” said Titus. 

“But,” urged Tam with a bright air, “mother said 
to hold on tight ! Hi ! Yi ! Yi ! ” 

Ah! what was that? What was it? Could Jeru- 
salem answer ? Can the wild winds talk ? Will the 
mad prairie speak ? The sunshine is tongue-tied, and 
the great sky is dumb. But something answered Tam 
o’ Shanter’s shout. 

O, there I O, Titus I Quick, quick, quick 1 Turn 


A Narrow Escape. 


him round, Tam ! Turn Jerusalem round ! Injuns! 
Injuns / O, I wish we hadn’t come ! What shall we 
do, what shall we do / O, Tam, they’ve all got horses, 
and they’re coming straight I Get upl Get up ! O, 
Jerusalem, do hurry! Old fellow, get us home! 
Good boy ! Good old fellow ! 

O, Tam! they’ve got arrows, and they’re going — 
to — shoot! 

Pretty little Mrs. Jacobs had got the newest baby 
to sleep, and got the baby that wasn’t quite so new to 
sleep, and given Betty her patchwork, and seht her 
husband out his beer, and swept the kitchen, and 
built the fire, and started supper on the way, and I 
don’t know what else besides, when that fine moth- 
er’s ear of hers detected, through the sough of the 
wind upon the prairie, a sharp, uneven, and, to her 
notion, rather ugly sound. 

Betty was sitting in the door, but she heard noth- 
ing. The sleeping babies did not stir from their baby 
dreams. John was in the garden, but John heard 
never a sound. 

Only the mother heard it. Only the mother grew 
lynx-eyed in an instant, and in an instant was out with 
hand upraised — just so, again — bareheaded, stem- 
mouthed, anxious-hearted, watching as those watch 


A Narrow Escape. 

who have lived much face to face with death — with- 
out a word. She did not even call her husband. Tlie 
time had not come to speak. 

It might have been three minutes ; it might have 
been less or more ; who could tell ? when John Jacobs, 
digging heavily over an obstinate potato, felt a hand 
laid lightly upon his shoulder. His wife stood beside 
him. She was as pale as one many hours dead ; but 
she stood quite still. 

“John,” she said, in a low voice, “come into the 
house a minute.” 

He obeyed her in wonder and in silence. He just 
dropped his hoe and went. 

“ Now, shut the door,” said Susan. He shut it. 
“ Shut the windows.” 

“ What’s the matter, Susan ? Anything wrong ? 
Ain’t the boys in ? What ? You — don’t — mean — ” 

“ Hush-sh I Before the children ! Don't., John ! 
I’ll tell you in a minute. Bolt the front door 1 ” 

He bolted it. 

“Lock everything. Draw the shutters. Fasten 
them with case-knives besides the 'buttons. Is the 
cellar door tight! Is everything tight.? Betty, take 
care of the babies a minute for mother. John, come 
here ! ” 

She led him to the little attic, and from the nanow. 


A Narrow Escape. 

three-cornered window pointed to the prairie, still with- 
out a word. 

And still, how beautiful it was ! How the wind 
played like one gone crazy for joy with the tender 
tops of the unbroken, unbounded grass. And soft, as 
if the world had gone to sleep for very safety, fell the 
magnificent western sun. Beautiful, terrible, treach- 
erous thing ! 

Cutting through the soft horizon line, sharp as the 
knife through shrinking flesh, six dark figures loomed 
against the sky. Wildly before them, with the gigan- 
tic strides of a long-stepped roadster, fled a big, gaunt, 
homely, grand old horse. And clinging with Jittle 
bright bare feet to his white sides, and clinging with 
little despairing arms to one another — 

“ My God ! They are our boys ! 

John Jacobs threw up his arms and ran. 

Quick as woman’s thought ran, his wife was before 
him, and had bolted the attic door. 

“ Where are you going, John ? ” 

She spoke, he thought, in her natural tones, though 
she trembled horribly. Where was he Why, 

to meet them, save them — get his gun — blow those 
devils’ brains out — what did she mean? Why did 
she keep him ? Quick, quick ! Open the door ! 

“ My husband,” said Susan, still in those strangely 


A Narrow Escape. 


quiet tones, “we cannot save our boys. Look for 
yourself and see. They will be shot before they reach 
the house. We have three children left. You must 
save them, and for their sakes, yourself, John. Keep 
the door locked. Keep' the windows barred. Keep 
the shutters drawn. Give me the old pistol and my 
gun. Take your own, and guard the door. There’s 
a chance that they’ll live to get here and be let in. 
But not one step outside that door, John Jacobs, as 
you’re the father of three living children I O, John, 
John, John ! My poor little boys ! ” 

He thought she would have broken down at that. 
He thought he could never get her from the attic 
floor, where she lay trembling in that horrid way, with 
her chin on the window-sill, and her eyes set upon 
the six dark figures, and the grand, old, ugly horse, 
upon which the slipping, reeling, hopeless, precious 
burden clung. But all he could hear her say was, 
“ Mother’s poor little boys ! ” 

Mother’s poor little boys indeed and indeed ! Leap 
your mighty leaps, Jerusalem — they’re none too large ; 
your great legs, that Tam and Titus have so often 
made fun of, are none too long for their business now. 
How the splendid muscles throbbed beneath the tiny, 
terrified bare feet ! No wondering which was horse 
and which was boy this time. It was all horse now. 


A Narrow Escape. 


There was no will, no muscle, no nerve, no soul, but 
the brave soul of old Jerusalem. Will he get us 
home ? Can he ever, ever keep ahead so long ? O, 
how the arrows fly by ! We shall be hit, we shall be 
hit ! O, mother, mother, mother ! 

“ Tam, why doesn’t father come to meet us ? Why 
don’t they do something for us, Tam? Has mother 
forgotten us?” 

That, I think, must have been the cruelest minute 
in all the cruel story. 

And yet perhaps not so cruel as the minute when 
the mother, at the attic window, gave one long, low, 
echoing cry, and came staggering from her post down 
stairs to say — still in that strange voice that mothers 
such as she will have at such a minute, “John, they 
are hit j the arrow struck them both. Let me to the 
kitchen-window. You stay at the door. There’s just 
a moment now.” 

There was but a moment, and, like a wild dream, 
the whole dreadful sight came sweeping up, over the 
garden, into the yard. 

Now John could not see anything but the mighty 
form of the horse Jerusalem. To this day, he says 
that the saddle, to his eyes, as the magnificent crea- 
ture leaped by, was empty as air. He only saw the 
horse — and the horse made straight for the barn. 


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A Narrow Escape, 


But why did the savages pursue a riderless horse ? 
And whooping and shooting cruelly after it, into the 
barn they plunged. 

“ The boys are on the horse,’’ in a hoarse whisper 
said the mother * “ I saw them both. They are bleed- 
ing and falling. The arrow has pinned them together^ 
John, but they’ve kept their seatj^ 

“ My boys are pretty good riders,” said John, turn- 
ing his white face round with a grim, father’s pride, 
even then ; “ but even my boys can’t keep a horse 
after they’re shot through the body. Fright has turned 
your brain, Susan.” 

I tell the story just as it was told to me ; and the 
way of that was this: how Jerusalem leaped into the 
barn, with the boys, or so the mother thought, bleed- 
ing upon his back ; how the savages scoured the barn, 
the yard, the garden, plundered a little here and 
there, and fitfully attacked at intervals the barri- 
caded house ; how John, brave and white at one door, 
and Susan, white and brave at the other, abundance 
of powder and unflinching hearts, and the love of 
three helpless babies, drove them by and by sullenly 
away; how, when they had been a long, safe hour 
gone, the parents, shivering and sad, crept out with 
white lips, little by little as they dared, to hunt for the 
bodies of their murdered boys. 


A Narrow Escape, 


“ They ain’t in the barn,” said the father, bringing 
his hand heavily across his eyes. “ I’ll go to the 
woods. I suppose they scalped the little fellows and 
left them there.” 

But the mother, when he was gone, went around 
and around stealthily as a cat about the barn. Ah, 
blessings forever on the mother’s ear, and blessings 
on the mother’s eye ! 

From out a pile of fresh earth thrown up in the 
barn-yard, a little stream of blood came trickling 
down — and she saw it. Deep from the middle of 
the mound a little cry came, faint, terror-stricken, 
smothered — but she heard it. 

To be sure. When Jerusalem — bless him ! — went 
leaping through the barn door, just an arrow’s length 
ahead of his pursuers, off tumbled Tam and Titus, 
and out into the barn-yard, and down into the pile 
of mud and gravel, deep and safe. And about and 
about, and here and there, the Indians had searched, 
and scoured, and grumbled — and gone: and there 
they weie. 

Pinned together with the arrow ? Truly, yes. Just 
under the shoulder (and Titus had the worst hurt, as 
will sometimes happen with the good boys) ; and how 
they ever did it, and lived, I don’t know. 

I’m sure they never would have, but for their brave, 




A Narrow Escape. 

black-eyed little mother, who picked them up, and 
washed them off, and carried them in (but she pulled 
out the arrow first), and put them to bed, and ban- 
daged, and contrived, and cared, and kissed, and cried, 
and prayed — and they got well. Probably if she had 
lived in the city of Boston, where there are two medi- 
cal schools, or in Philadelphia, where there are three 
more, or in New York, where there are five, to say 
nothing of nobody knows how many full-fledged doc- 
tors, the boys would have died. But as she lived in 
a howling wilderness, and they had nothing but clean 
water, and soft bandages, and mother’s eyes and 
hands and love to get well upon, they lived. 

They lived to be six feet high ; and as they are liv- 
ing now, I presume they measure six feet still. 

It is a pretty large story, I know j but it is a true 
one, for Pve seen the arrow. John gave the arrow to 
a gentleman ; and the gentleman gave it to his daugh- 
ter; and the daughter — no, she wouldn't give it to 
me ; but I held it for five minutes in the very hand 
with which I write these words. And if that doesn’t 
prove that the story is true, what could ? 

And Jerusalem ? O, Jerusalem lived to a green 
old age, and was buried in the barn-yard with great 
honors. And Tam and Titus cried, and John and 
Susan cried, and Betty, and the new, and the newest, 


A Narrow Escape, 


and the very newest, and the very, very newest, and 
all the babies cried; and it would have been very 
sad, if it hadn’t been a little funny. 

But 1 think, take it altogether, it was an Arrow 
Escape. 




TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS. 


O NE afternoon I went over to see Fred Bar- 
nard, and found him sitting on the back steps, 
apparently meditating. 

“ What are you doing ? ” said I. 

“ Waiting for that handkerchief to dry,’’ said he, 
pointing to a red one with round white spots, which 
hung on the clothes-line. 

“ And what are you going to do when it’s dry ? ” 
said I. 

“ Tie up my things in it,” said he. 

“ Things ! What things ? ” 

“ O, such things as a fellow needs when he’s trav- 
eling. I’m going to seek my fortune.” 

“ Where are you going to seek it ? ” said I. 

“ I can’t tell exactly — anywhere and everywhere. 
I’m going till I find it.” 


T'wo Fortune-Seekers. 


“But,” said I, “do you really expect to turn over 
a stone, or pull up a bush, or get to the end of a 
rainbow, and find a crock full of five-dollar gold 
pieces ? ” 

“ O, no ! ” said Fred. “ Such things are gone by 
long ago. You can’t do that nowadays, if you ever 
could. But people do get rich nowadays, and there 
must be some way to do it.” 

“ Don’t they get rich mostly by staying at home, 
and minding their business,” said I, “instead of 
going off tramping about the world , 

“ Maybe some of them do,” said Fred ; “ but my 
father has always staid at home, and minded his busi- 
ness, and he hasn’t got rich ; and I don’t believe he 
ever will. But there’s uncle Silas, he’s always on the 
go, so you never know where to direct a letter to him ; 
and he has lots of money. Sometimes mother tells 
him he ought to settle down; but he always says, 
if he did he’s afraid he wouldn’t be able to settle 
up by and by.” 

I thought of my own father, and my mother’s 
brother. They both staid at home and minded their 
own business, yet neither of them was rich. This 
seemed to confirm Fred’s theory, and I was inclined 
to think he was more than half right. 

“ I don’t know but I’d like to go with you,” said I. 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


“ I don’t want you to,” said Fred. 

“ Why,” said I, in astonishment ; “ are we not good 
friends ? ” 

“ O, yes, good friends as ever,” said Fred ; “ but 
you’re not very likely to find two fortunes close to- 
gether ; and I think it’s better for every one to go 
alone.” 

“ Then why couldn’t I start at the same time you 
do, and go a different way ? ” 

“ That would do,” said Fred. “ I’m going to start 
to-morrow morning.” And he walked to the line, 
and felt of the handkerchief. 

“ I can take mother’s traveling-bag,” said I. “ That 
will be handier to carry than a bundle tied up.” 

“Take it if you like,” said Fred; “but / believe 
there’s luck in an old-fashioned handkerchief. In all 
the pictures of boys going to seek their fortunes, they 
have their things tied up in a handkerchief, and a 
stick put through it and over their shoulder.” 

I did not sympathize much with Fred’s belief in 
luck, though I thought it was possible there might 
be something in it ; but the bundle in the handker- 
chief seemed to savor a little more of romance, and 
I determined that I would conform to the ancient 
style. 

“ Does your father know about it ? ” said I. 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


“ Yes ; and he says I may go.” 

Just then Fred’s father drove around from the 
darn. 

“I’m going away,” said he to Fred, “to be gone 
several days. So, if you go in the morning, I shall 
not see you again until you return from your travels.” 
And he laughed a little. 

“Well, I’m certainly going to-morrow morning,” 
said Fred, in answer to the “if.” 

“ You ought to have a little money with you,” said 
Mr. Barnard, taking out his wallet. 

“ No, sir, I thank you,” said Fred ; “ but I’d rather 
not have it.” 

His father looked surprised. 

“ I think it’s luckier to start without it,” said Fred, 
in explanation. 

“ Very well ! Luck go with you ! ” said Mr. Bar- 
nard, as he drove off. 

“ Do you think it best to go without any money 
at all ? ” said I. “ It seems to me it would be better 
to have a little.” 

“ No,” said Fred j “ a fellow ought to depend on 
himself, and trust to luck. It wouldn’t be any fun at 
all to stop at taverns and pay for meals and lodging, 
just like ordinary travelers. And then, if people saw 
I had money to pay for things, they wouldn’t believe 
I was going to seek my fortune.” 







3 ^ 


IWW) 








Two For tune- Seekers. 


“ Why, do we want them to know that ? ” said I. 

“7 do,” said he. 

“ That isn’t the way .the boys in the stories do,” 
said I. 

“ And that’s just where they missed it,” said Fred ; 
“ or would, if they lived nowadays. Don’t you see that 
everybody that wants anything lets everybody know 
it ? When I’m on my travels, I’m going to tell every 
one what I’m after. That’s the way to find out where 
to go and what to do.” 

“ Won’t some of them fool you,” said I, “ and tell 
you lies, and send you on the wrong road ? ” 

“ A fellow’s got to look out for that,” said Fred, 
knowingly. “ We needn’t believe all they say.” 

“ What must we take in our bundles ? ” said I. 

“ I’m going to take some cookies, and a Bible, and 
a tin cup, and a ball of string, and a pint of salt,” 
said Fred. 

‘‘ What’s the salt for ? ” said I. 

“We may have to camp out some nights,” said 
Fred, “ and live on what we can find. There are lots 
of things you can find in the woods and fields to 
live on ; but some of them ain’t good without salt — 
mushrooms, for instance.” Fred was very fond of 
mushrooms. 

“ And is the string to tie up the bags of money ? ’ 
said I — not meaning to be at all sarcastic. 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


“ O, no ! ” said Fred ; “but string’s always handy to 
have. We may want to set snares for game, or tie up 
things that break, or catch fish. And then if you 
have to stay all night in a house where the people 
look silJSpicious, you can fix a string so that if any one 
opens the door of your room, it’ll wake you up.” 

“ If that happened, you’d want a pistol — wouldn’t 
you ? ” said I. “ Or else it wouldn’t do much good to 
be waked up.” 

“ I’d take a pistol, if I had one,” said Fred ; “ but 
I can get along without it. You can always hit ’em 
over the head with a chair, or a pitcher, or something. 
You know you can swing a pitcher full of water 
around quick, and not spill a drop ; and if you should 
hit a man a fair blow with it, ’twould knock him 
senseless. Besides, it’s dangerous using a pistol in a 
house. Sometimes the bullets go through the wall, 
and kill innocent persons.” 

“ We don’t want to do that,” said I. 

“ No,” said Fred ; “that would be awful unlucky.” 

Then he felt of the handkerchief again, said he 
guessed it was dry enough, and took it off from the 
line. 

“ Fred,” said I, “ how much is a fortune ? ” 

“That depends on your ideas,” said Fred, as he 
smoothed the handkerchief over his knee. “ I should 


Two Fortune-Seekers , 


not be satisfied with less than a hundred thousand 
dollars.” 

“ I ought to be going home to get ready,” said I. 
“ What time do we start ^ ” 

“ Five o’clock exactly,” said Fred. 

So we agreed to meet at the horse-block, in front 
of the house, a minute or two before five the next 
morning, and start simultaneously on the search for 
fortune. 

I went home, and asked mother if there was a red 
handkerchief, with round white spots on it, in the 
house. 

“ I think there is,” said she. “ What do you want 
wdth it ? ” 

I told her all about our plan, just as Fred and I 
had arranged it. She smiled, said she hoped we 
would be successful, and went to get the handkerchief. 

It proved to be just like Fred’s, except that the 
spots were yellow, and had little red dots in the mid- 
dle. I thought that would do, and then asked her 
for the salt, the cup, and the cookies. She gave me 
her pint measure full of salt, and as she had no cookies 
in the house, she substituted four sandwiches. 

But,” said I, “ won’t you want to use this cup 
before I get back?” 

“ I think not,” said she, with a twinkle in her eye, 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


which puzzled me then, but which afterward I under- 
stood. 

I got my little Bible, and some twine, and then Y^ent 
into the yard to hunt up a stick to carry the bundle 
on. I found a slender spoke from an old carriage- 
wheel, and adopted it at once. “That,” said I to 
myself, as I handled and “ hefted ” it, “ would be just 
the thing to hit a burglar over the head with.” 

I fixed the bundle all ready for a start, and went 
to bed in good season. Mother rose early, got 
me a nice breakfast, and called me at half past 
four. 

“ Mother,” said I, as feelings of gratitude rose 
within me at the excellence of the meal, “ how does 
a camel’s-hair shawl look ? ” 

“ I don’t know, my son,” said she. “ I never saw 
one.” 

“ Never saw one ! ” said I. “ Well, you shall see 
one, a big one, if I find my fortune.” 

“ Thank you,” said mother, and smiled again that 
peculiar smile. 

Fred and I met promptly at the horse-block. He 
greatly admired my stick ; his was an old hoe-handle, 
sawed short. I gave him two of my sandwiches for 
half of his cookies, and we tied up the bundles snugly, 
and slung them over our shoulders, 


Two Fortune- Seekers. 


“ How long do you think it will take us ? ” said I. 

“ Maybe three or four years — maybe more,” 
said he. 

Let us agree to meet again on this spot five years 
from to-day,” said I. 

“ All right ! ” said Fred ; and he took out a bit of 
lead pencil, and wrote the date on the side of the 
block. 

“ The rains and snows will wash that off before the 
five years are up,” said I. 

“ Never mind ! we can remember,” said Fred. 
^‘And now,” he continued, as he shook hands with 
me, “ don’t look back. Pm not going to ; it isn’t 
lucky, and it’ll make us want to be home again. 
Good-bye ! ” 

“ Good-bye ! Remember, five years,” said I. 

He took the east road, I the west, and neither 
looked back. 

I think I must have walked about four miles with- 
out seeing any human being. Then I fell in with a 
boy, who was driving three cows to pasture, and we 
scraped acquaintance. 

“ Where y’ goin’ ? ” said he, eyeing my bundle. 

“ A long journey,” said I. 

“ Chiny ? ” said he. 

“ Maybe so — maybe not,” said I. 


Two Fortune- Seekers. 


“ What y’ got ’t sell ? ” said he. 

“ Nothing,” said I ; I’m only a traveler not a 
peddler. Can you tell me whose house that is ? ” 

“ That big white one ? ” said he \ “ that’s Hath- 
away’s.^’ 

“ It looks new,” said I. 

“ Yes, ’tis, spick an’ span,” said he. “ Hathaway ’s 
jest moved into it ; used to live in that little broTm 
one over there.” 

“ Mr. Hathaway must be rich,” said I. 

“ Jolly ! I guess he is ! — wish I was half as rich,” 
said the boy. “ Made ’s money on the rise of prop’ty. 
Used to own all this land round here, when ’twas a 
howlin’ wilderness. I’ve heard dad say so lots o’ 
times. There he is now.” 

“ Who ? — your father ? ” said I. 

“ No ; Hathaway.” And the boy pointed to a very 
old, white-headed man, who was leaning on a cane, and 
looking up at the cornice of the house. 

“ He looks old,” said I, 

“ He is, awful old,” said the boy. “ Can’t live 
much longer. His daughter Nancy ’ll take the hull. 
Ain’t no other relations.” 

“ How old is Nancy ? ” said I ; and if I had been a 
few years older myself, the question might have been 
significant ; but among all the methods I had thought 









Two Fortu7ie-Seekers. 


over of acquiring a fortune, that of marrying one was 
not included. 

“ O, she’s gray-headed too,” said the boy, “ ’n 
deafer ’n a post, ’nd blind ’s a bat. I wish the old 
man couldn’t swaller a mouthful o’ breakfast till 
he’d give me half what he’s got.” And with this 
charitable expression he turned with the cows into 
the lane, and I saw him no more. 

While I was meditating on the venerable but not 
venerated Mr. Hathaway and his property, a wagon 
came rumbling along behind me. 

“ Don’t you want to ride ? ” said the driver, as I 
stepped aside to let it pass. 

I thanked him, and climbed to a place beside him 
on the rough seat. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and 
wore a torn straw hat. He had reddish side- whiskers, 
and has chin needed shaving, badly. 

“‘Got far to go ? ” said he, as the team started up 
again. 

“ I expect to walk all day,” said I. 

“ Then you must get a lift when you can,” said he. 
“ Don’t be afraid to ask. A good many that wouldn’t 
invite you, as I did, would let you ride if you aslced 
them.” 

I promised to remember his advice. 

“ Ever drive a team .•* ” said h^ 


Two For tune- Seekers. 


“ Not much,” said I. 

“ I want a good boy to drive team,” said he. “ Sup^ 
pose you could learn.” And then he began to talk to 
the horses, and to whistle. 

“ How much would you pay ? ” said I. 

“ I’d give a good smart boy ten dollars a month and 
board,” said he. “ Git ap, Doc ! ” 

“ How much of that could he save ? ” said I. 

“ Save eight dollars a month easy enough, if he’s 
careful of his clothes, and don’t want to go to every 
circus that comes along,” said he. 

I made a mental calculation : ‘‘ Eight times twelve 
are ninety-six — into a hundred thousand — one thou- 
sand and forty-one years, and some months. O, yes ! 
interest — well, nearly a thousand years.” Then I 
said aloud, “I guess I won’t hire; don’t believe I’d 
make a very good teamster.” 

“I think you would ; and it’s good wages,” said he. 

“ Nobody but Methuselah could get rich at it,” 
said I. 

“ Rich ? ” said he. “ Of course you couldn’t get 
rich teaming. If that’s what you’re after, I’ll tell you 
what you do : plant a forest. Timber’s good property. 
The price of it’s more than doubled in ten years past, 
and it ’ll be higher yet. You plant a tree, and it ’ll 
grow while you sleep. Chess won’t choke it, and the 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


weevil can’t eat it. You don’t have to hoe it, nor 
mow it, nor pick it, nor rotate it, nor feed it, nor churn 
it, nor nothing. That’s the beauty of it. And you 
plant a forest of trees, and in time it ’ll make you a 
rich man.” 

“ How much time ? ” said I. 

“ Well, that piece of timber you see over there, — 
that’s Eph Martin’s ; he’s going to cut it next season. 
The biggest trees must be — well, perhaps eighty 
years old. You reckon up the interest on the cost of 
the land, and you’ll see it’s a good investment. I 
wish I had such a piece.” 

“ Why don’t you plant one ” said I, 

“ O, I’m too old ! My grandfather ought to have 
done it for me. Whoa ! Doc. Whoa ! Tim.” 

He drew up at a large, red barn, where a man and 
a boy were grinding a scythe. I jumped down, and 
trudged on. 

After I had gone a mile or two, I began to feel 
hungry, and sat down on a stone, under a great oak 
tree, to eat a sandwich. Before I knew it I had eaten 
( wo, and then I was thirsty. There was a well in a 
door-yard close by, and I went to it. The bucket was 
too heavy for me to lift, and so I turned the salt out 
of my cup in a little pile on a clean-looking comer 
of the well-curb, and drank. 


Two For tune- Seeker 5. 


The woman of the house came to the door, and took 
a good look at me ; then she asked if I would not rather 
have a drink of milk. I said I would, and she brought 
a large bowlful, which I sat down on the door-step 
to enjoy. 

Presently a sun-browned, barefooted boy, wearing 
a new chip hat, and having his trousers slung by a 
single suspender, came around the corner of the house, 
and stopped before me. 

“ Got any Shanghais at your house ? ’’ said he. 

“ No ! ” 

“ Any Cochins?” 

“ No ! ” 

“ Any Malays ? ” 

“ No ! ” 

“ What have you got ? ” 

“ About twenty common hens,” said^ I, perceiving 
*^hat his thoughts were running on fancy breeds of fowls. 

“ Don’t want to buy a nice pair of Shanghais — do 
you ? ” said he. 

“ I couldn’t take them to-day,” said I. 

“ Let’s go look: at them,” said he ; and I followed 
him toward the barn. 

“ This is my hennery,” said he, with evident pride, 
as we came to a small yard which was inclosed with 
a fence made of long, narrow strips of board, set up 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


endwise, and nailed to a slight railing. Inside was 
a low shed, with half a dozen small entrances near 
the ground. 

“Me and Jake built this,” said he. “Jake ’s my 
brother.” 

He unbuckled a strap that fastened the gate, and 
we went inside. A few fowls, of breeds unfamiliar to 
me, were scratching about the yard. 

“ Don*’t you call them nice hens ? ” said he. 

“ I guess they are,” said I ; “ but I don’t know 
much about hens.” 

“ Don’t you ? ” said he. “ Then I’ll tell you some- 
thing about them. There’s money in hens. Father 
says so, and I know it’s so. I made fifty-one dollars 
and thirteen cents on these last year. I wish I had 
a million.” 

“A million dollars,” said I, “is a good deal of 
money. I should be satisfied with one tenth of 
that.” 

“ I meant a million hens,” said he. “ I’d rather 
have a million hens than a million dollars.” 

I went through a mental calculation similar to the 
one I had indulged in while riding with the teamster : 
“ Fifty-one, thirteen — almost two thousand years. 
Great Caesar ! Yes, Great Caesar sure enough ! I 
ought to have begun keeping hens about the time 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


Cassius was egging on the conspirators to lay out that 
gentleman. But I forgot the interest again. Call it 
fifteen hundred.” 

“ Let’s go in and look at the nests,” said the boy, 
opening the door of the shed. 

The nests were in a row of boxes nailed to the wall. 
He took out some of the eggs, and showed them to 
me. Several had pencil-writing on the shell, intended 
to denote the breed. I remember Gaim^ Schanghy^ 
and Cotching. 

“ There’s a pair of Shanghais,” said he as he went 
out, pointing with one hand while he tightened the 
gate-strap with the other, “ that I’ll sell you for five 
dollars. Or I’ll sell you half a dozen eggs for six 
dollars.” 

I told him I couldn’t trade that day, but would cer- 
tainly come and see him when I wanted to buy any 
fancy hens. 

“ If you see anybody,” said he, as we parted, “ that 
wants a nice pair of Shanghais reasonable, you tell 
’em where I live.” 

“ I will,” said I, and pushed on. 

“ Money in hens, eh ? ” said I to myself. “ Then, 
if they belonged to me, I’d kill them, and get it out 
of them at once, notwithstanding the proverb about 
the goose.” 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


After some further journeying I came to a roadside 
tavern. A large, square sign, with a faded picture of 
a horse, and the words Schuyler’s Hotel, faintly 
legible, hung from an arm that extended over the road 
from a high post by the pump. 

I sat down on the steps, below a group of men who 
were tilted back in chairs on the piazza. One, who 
wore a red shirt, and chewed a very large quid of 
tobacco, was just saying, — 

“ Take it by and through, a man can make wages 
at the mines, and that’s all he can make.” 

“ Unless he strikes a big nugget,” said a little man 
with one eye. 

“ He might be there a hundred years, and not do 
that,” said Red Shirt. “ I never struck one.” 

“ And again he might strike it the very first day,” 
said One Eye. 

“ Again he might,” said Red Shirt j “ but I’d rather 
take my chances keeping tavern. Lopk at Schuyler, 
now. He’ll die a rich man.” 

The one who seemed to be Schuyler was well worth 
looking at. I had never seen so much man packed 
into so much chair; and it was an exact fit — just 
enough chair for the man, just enough man for the 
chair. Schuyler’s boundary from his chin to his toe 
was nearly, if not exactly, a straight line. 


Two Fortune- Seekers. 


Die rich ? ” said One Eye. “ He’s a livin’ rich \ 
he’s rich to-day.” 

“ If any of you gentlemen want to make your for- 
tune keeping a hotel,” said Schuyler, “ I’ll sell on 
easy terms.” 

“ How much, ’squire ? ” said Red Shirt. 

“ Fifteen,” answered Schuyler. 

“ Fifteen thousand — furniture and all ? ” said One 
Eye. 

“ Everything,” said Schuyler. 

“ Your gran’f’ther bought the place for fifteen hun- 
dred,” said One Eye. “ But money was wuth more 
then.” 

While listening to this conversation, I had taken 
out my cookies, and I was eating the last of them 
when One Eye made his last recorded remark. 

“ Won’t you come in, sonny, and stay over night ? ” 
said Schuyler. 

“ Thank you, sir,” said I ; “ but I can’t stop.” 

“Then don’t be mussing up my clean steps,” 
said he. 

I looked at him to see if he was in earnest ; for I 
was too hungry to let a single crum fall, and could 
not conceive what should make a muss. The whole 
company were staring at me most uncomfortably. 
Without saying another word, I picked up my stick 
and bundle, and walked off. 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


“ Thirteen thousand five hundred/' said I to myself, 
slowly, — “in three generations — four thousand five 
hundred to a generation. I ought to have come over 
with Christopher Columbus, and set up a tavern for 
:he red-skins to lounge around. Then maybe if I 
never let any little Indian boys eat their lunches 
on the steps, I’d be a rich man now. Fifteen thou- 
sand dollars — and so mean, so abominably mean — 
and such a crowd of loafers for company. No, I 
wouldn’t keep tavern if I could get rich in one gen- 
eration.” 

At the close of this soliloquy, I found I had in- 
stinctively turned towards home when I left Schuyler’s 
Hotel. “It’s just as well,” said I, “just as well ! 
I’d rather stay at home and mind my business, like 
father, and not have any fortune, if that’s the way 
people get them nowadays.” 

I had the good luck to fall in with my friend the 
teamster, who gave me a longer lift than before, and 
sounded me once more on the subject of hiring out to 
drive team for him. 

As I passed over the crest of the last hill in the 
road, I saw something in the distance that looked 
very much like another boy with a bundle over his 
shoulder. I waved my hat. It waved its hat. We 
met at the horse-block, each carrying a broad grin the 
last few rods of the way. 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


“Let’s see your fortune,” said I, as I laid my 
bundle on the block. 

“ Let’s see yours,” said he, as he laid his beside it. 

“ You started the plan,” said I ; “so you tell your 
adventures first.” 

Thereupon Fred told his story, which I give nearly 
in his own words. 

He traveled a long distance before he met with 
any incident. Then he came to a house that had 
several windows boarded up, and looked as if it might 
not be inhabited. While Fred stood looking at it, 
and wondering about it, he saw a shovelful of earth 
come out of one of the cellar windows. It was fol- 
lowed in a few seconds by another, and another, at 
regular intervals. 

“ I know how it is,” said Fred. “ Some old miser 
has lived and died in that house. He used to bury 
his money in the cellar ; and now somebody’s digging 
for it. I mean to see if I can’t help him.” 

Going to the window, he stooped down and looked 
in. At first he saw nothing but the gleam of a new 
shovel. But when he had looked longer he discerned 
the form of the man who wielded it. 

“ Hello ! ” said Fred, as the digger approached the 
window to throw out a shovelful. 

“ Hello ! Who are you ? ” said the man. 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


“ I’m a boy going to seek my fortune,” said Fred. 
“ What are you digging for } ” 

“ Digging for a fortune,” said the man, taking up 
another shovelful. 

“ May I help you ? ” said Fred. 

“ Yes, if you like.” 

“ And have half ? ” 

“ Have all you find,” said the man, forcing down 
his shovel with his foot. 

Fred ran around to the cellar door, laid down his 
bundle on the grass beside it, and entered. The 
man pointed to an old shovel with a large corner 
broken off,, and Fred picked it up and went to 
work. 

Nearly half of the cellar bottom had been lowered 
about a foot by digging, and the man was lowering 
the remainder. With Fred’s help, after about two 
hours of hard work, it was all cut down to the lower 
level. 

Fred had kept his eyes open, and scrutinized every 
shovelful ; but nothing like a coin had gladdened his 
sight. Once he thought he had one, and ran to the 
light with it. But it proved to be only the iron ear 
broken off from some old bucket. 

“ I guess that’ll do,” said the man, wiping his brow, 
when the leveling was completed. 


Two Fortune-Seekers, 


“ Do ? ” said Fred, in astonishment. “ Why, we 
haven’t found any of the money yet.” 

“ What money ? ” 

“ The money the old miser buried, of course.” 

The man laughed heartily. “ I wasn’t digging for 
any miser’s moneyj” said he. 

“ You said so,” said Fred. 

“ O, no ! ” said the man. “ I said I was digging 
for a fortune. Come and sit down, and I’ll tell you 
all about it.” 

They took seats on the highest of the cellar steps 
* that led out of doors. 

“ You see,” continued the man, “ my wife went down 
cellar one day, and struck her forehead against one 
of those beams j and she died of it. If she had lived 
a week longer, she’d have inherited a very pretty 
property. So I’ve lowered the cellar floor ; and if I 
should have another wife, her head couldn’t reach the 
beams, unless she was very tall — taller than I am. So 
if she inherits a fortune, the cellar won’t prevent us 
getting it. That’s the fortune I was digging for.” 

“ It’s a mean trick to play on a boy ; and if I was 
a man, I’d lick you,” said Fred, as he shouldered his 
bundle and walked away. 

Two or three miles farther down the road he came 
to a small blacksmith shop. The smith, a stout, mid* 


Two Fortune- Seekers. 


die -aged man, was sitting astride of a small bench 
with long legs, making horseshoe nails on a little 
anvil that rose from one end of it. 

Fred went in, and asked if he might sit there a 
while to rest. 

“Certainly,’^ said the blacksmith, as he threw a 
finished nail into an open drawer under the bench. 
“ How far have you come ? ” 

“ I can’t tell,” said Fred ; “ it must be as much as 
ten miles.” 

“ Got far to go ? ” 

“ I don’t know how far. I’m going to seek my for- 
tune.” 

The smith let his hammer rest on the anvil, and 
took a good look at Fred. “You seem to be in 
earnest,” said he. 

“ I am,” said Fred. 

Don’t you know that gold dollars don’t go rolling 
up hill in these days, for boys to chase them, and we 
haven’t any fairies in this country, dancing by moon- 
light over buried treasure } ” said the smith. 

“ O, yes, I know that,” said Fred. “ But people 
get rich in these days as much as ever they did. 
And I want to find out the best way to do it.” 

“ What is that nail made of ? ” said the smith, hold- 
ing out one. 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


“ Iron,” said Fred, wondering what that had to do 
with a boy seeking his fortune. 

“ And that hammer ? ” 

“ Iron.^’ 

“ And that anvil ? ” 

“ Iron.” 

“ Well, don’t you see,” said the smith, resting his 
• hammer on the anvil, and leaning over it toward 
Fred, — ‘‘don’t you see that everything depends on 
iron.^ A farmer can’t cultivate the ground until he 
has a plow; and that plow is made of iron. A 
butcher can’t cut up a critter until he has a knife; 
and that knife is made of iron. A tailor can’t make 
a garment without a needle ; and that needle is made 
of iron. You can’t build a ship without iron, nor 
start a mill, nor arm a regiment. The stone age, 
and the brass age, and the golden age are all gone 
by. This is the iron age ; and iron is the basis of all 
wealth. The richest man is the man that has the 
most iron. Railroads are made of iron, and the rich- 
est men are those that own railroads.” 

“ How can one man own a railroad ? ” said Fred, 
amazed at the vastness of such wealth. 

“ Well, he can’t exactly, unless he steals it,” said 
the smith. 

“ I should like to own a railroad,” said Fred ; and 


Two Fortune-Seekers, 


he thought what fun he might have, as well as profit, 
being conductor on his own train ; “ but I didn’t come 
to steal j I want to find a fortune honestly.” 

“ Then look for it in iron,” said the smith. “ Iron 
in some form always paves the road to prosperity.” 

“ Would blacksmithing be a good way ? ” said 
Fred. 

“ Now you’ve hit it,” said the smith. “ I haven’t 
got rich myself, and probably never shall. But I 
didn’t take the right course. I was a sailor when I 
was young, and spent half my life wandering around 
the world, before I settled down and turned black- 
smith. I dare say if I had learned the trade early 
enough, and had gone and set up a shop in some 
large place, or some rising place, and hadn’t always 
been so low in my charges, I might be a rich man.” 

Fred thought the blacksmith must be a very enter- 
taining and learned man, whom it would be pleasant 
as well as profitable to work with. So, after thinking 
it over a few minutes, he said, — 

“ Do you want to hire a boy to learn the business ? ” 
“ I’ll give you a chance,” said the smith, “ and see 
what you can do.” Then he went outside and drew 
in a wagon, which was complete except part of the 
iron-work, and started up his fire, and thrust in some 
small bars of iron. 


1 wo Fortiaie- Seekers. 


Fred laid aside his bundle, threw off his jacket, and 
announced that he was ready for work. The smith 
set him to blowing the bellows, and afterward gave 
him a light sledge, and showed him how to strike the 
red-hot bar on the anvil, alternating with the blows of 
the smith’s own hammer. 

At first it was very interesting to feel the soft iron 
give at every blow, and see the sparks fly, and the bars 
and rods taking the well-known shapes of carriage-irons. 
But either the smith had reached the end of his polit- 
ical economy, or else he was too much in earnest 
about his work to deliver orations ; his talk now was 
of “swagging,” and “upsetting,” and “countersink- 
ing,” and “ taps,” and “ dies ” — all of which terms he 
taught Fred the use of. 

Fred was quick enough to learn, but had never 
been fond of work ; and this was work that made the 
sweat roll down his whole body. After an hour or 
two, he gave it up. 

“ I think I’ll look further for my fortune,” said he j 
“ this is too hard work.” 

“All right,” said the smith; “but maybe you’ll 
fare worse. You’ve earned a little something, any- 
way ; ” and he drew aside his leather apron, thrust his 
hand into his pocket, and brought out seven cents ; 
which Fred accepted with thanks, and resumed his 
journey. 


Two For tune- Seekers. 


His next encounter was with a farmer, who sat in 
the grassy corner of a field, under the shade of a 
maple tree, eating his dinner. This reminded Fred 
that it was noon, and that he was hungry. 

“ How d’e do, mister ? ” said Fred, looking through 
the rail-fence. “ I should like to come over and take 
dinner with you.” 

“ You’ll have to furnish your own victuals,” said 
the farmer. 

“ That I can do,” said Fred, and climbed over the 
fence, and sat down by his new acquaintance. 

“ Where you bound for ? ” said the farmer, as Fred 
opened his bundle, and took out a sandwich. 

“ Going to seek my fortune,” said Fred. 

“You don’t look like a runaway ’prentice,” said 
the farmer; “but that’s a curious answer to a civil 
question.” 

“ It’s true,” said Fred. “ I am going to seek my 
fortune.” 

“ Where do you expect to find it ? ” 

“ I can’t tell — I suppose I must hunt for it.” 

“ Well, I can tell you where to look for it, if you’re 
in earnest; and ’tain’t so very far off, either,” said 
the farmer, as he raised the jug of milk to his mouth. 

Fred indicated by his attitude that he was all atten- 
tion, while the farmer took a long drink. 


Two Fortune- Seekers. 


“ In the ground,” said he, as he sat down the jug 
with one hand, and brushed the other across his 
mouth. “ There’s no w^ealth but what comes out of 
the ground in some way. All the trees and plants, 
all the grains, and grasses, and garden-sass, all the 
brick and stone, all the metals — iron, gold, silver, 
copper — everything comes out of the ground. That’s 
where man himself came from, according to the Bible : 

* Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’ 
And the first primary foundation of it all is agri- 
culture. Hewson, the blacksmith, pretends to . say 
it’s iron ; and he maintained that side in the debat- 
ing club at the last meeting. But I maintained it 
was agriculture, and I maintain so still. Says I, ‘ Mr. 
President, what’s your tailor, and your sailor, and 
your ship-builder, and your soldier, and your black- 
smith going to do without something to eat ? [Here 
the farmer made a vigorous gesture by bringing down 
his fist upon his knee.] They can’t eat needles, nor 
spikes, nor guns, nor anvils. The farmer’s got to 
feed ’em, every one on ’em. And they’ve got to 
have a good breakfast before they can do a good 
day’s work, and a dinner in the middle of it, and a 
supper at the end of it. Can’t plow without iron ? ’ 
says I. ‘Why, Mr. President, in Syria and there- 
abouts they plow with a crooked limb of a tree to 


Two Fortune-Seekers, 


this day. The gentleman can see a picture of it 
*in Barnes’s Notes, if he has access to that valuable 
work.’ And says I, ‘ Mr. President, who was first in 
the order of time — Adam the farmer, or Tubal Cain 
the blacksmith ? No, sir ; Adam was the precursor of 
Tubal Cain ; Adam had to be created before Tubal 
Cain could exist. First the farmer, and then the 
blacksmith; — that, Mr. President, is the divine order 
in the great procession of creation.’ ” 

Here tl le farmer stopped, and cut a piece of meat 
with his pocket-knife. 

“ Boy,” he continued, “ if you want a fortune, you 
must dig it out of the ground. You won’t find one 
anywhere else.” 

Fred thought of his recent unpleasant experience 
in digging for a fortune, and asked, “Isn’t digging 
generally pretty hard work.” 

“ Yes,” said the farmer, as he took up his hoe, and 
rose to his feet ; “ it w hard work ; but it’s a great 
deal more respectable than wandering around like a 
vagrant, picking up old horse-shoes, and hollering 
‘ Money ! ’ at falling stars.” 

Fred thought the man was somehow getting per- 
sonal. So he took his bundle, climbed the fence, and 
said good-bye to him. 

He walked on until he came to a fork of the road, 


2'wo Fortune-Seekers. 


and there he stopped, considering which road he would 
take. He could find no sign-board of any sort, and 
was about to toss one of his pennies to determine 
the question, when he saw a white steeple at some 
distance down the right hand road. “ It’s always 
good luck to pass a church,” said he, and took that 
road. 

When he reached the church, he sat down on the 
steps to rest. While he sat there, thinking over all 
he had seen and heard that day, a gentleman wearing 
a black coat, a high hat, and a white cravat, came 
through the gate of a little house almost buried in 
vines and bushes, that stood next to the church. He 
saw Fred, and approached him, saying, — 

“ Whither away, my little pilgrim ? ” 

“ I am going to seek my fortune,” said Fred. 

“ Haven’t you a home ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Parents ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Are they good to you ? ” 

“ O, yes, sir.” 

“ Then you are fortunate already,” said the gentle- 
man. “ When I was at your age, I had neither home 
nor parents, and the people where I lived were very 
unkind.” 


Two I^or tune- Seekers. 


“But my father isn’t rich,” said Fred; “and he 
never will be.” 

“ And you want to be rich ? ” said the gentleman. 

“ Yes, sir. I thought I’d try to be,” said Fred. 

“ What for ? ” 

“What for? Why — why — so as to have the 
money.” 

“ And what would you do with the money, if you 
had it ? ” 

“I’d — I’d use it,” said Fred, beginning to feel that 
he had come to debating school without sufficiently 
understanding the question. 

“ Do you see that pile of large stones near my 
barn ? ” said the gentleman. “ I’ll give you those, 
and lend you a wheelbarrow to get them home.” 

“ I thank you,” said Fred ; “but I don’t want them. 
They’re of no use.” 

“ O, yes, they are ! You can build a house with 
them,” said the gentleman. 

“ But I’m not ready to build a house,” said Fred. 
“ I haven’t any land to build it on, nor any other 
materials, nor anything to put into it; and I’m not 
old enough to be married and keep house.” 

“ Very true, my son ! and if you had a cart-load of 
money now, it wouldn’t be of any more value to you 
than a cart-load of those building stones. But, after 


Two Fortune-Seekers. 


you have been to school a few years longer, and 
trained yourself to some business, and made a man of 
yourself, and developed your character, then you will 
have tastes, and capacities, and duties that require 
money j and if you get it as you go along, and always 
have enough to satisfy them, and none in excess to 
encumber you, that will be the happiest fortune you 
can find.” 

Fred took a few minutes to think of it. Then he 
said, — 

“ I believe you have told me the truth, and set me 
on the right track. I will go home again, and try to 
make a man of myself first, and a rich man afterward.” 

“ Before you start, perhaps you would like to come 
into my house and get rested, and look at some 
pictures.” 

Fred accepted the invitation. The lady of the 
house gave him a delicious lunch, and he spent an 
hour in the clergyman’s study, looking over two or 
three portfolios of prints and drawings, which they 
explained to him. Then he bade them good-bye, 
shouldered his bundle, and started for home, having 
the good fortune to catch a long ride, and arriving 
just as I did. 

“What I’ve learned,” said he, as he finished his 
story, “ is, that you can get rich if you don’t care for 












Two For tune- Seeker 5. 


anything else ; but you’ve either got to work yourself 
to death for it, or else cheat somebody. You can get 
it out of the ground by working, or you can get it out 
of men by cheating. But who wants to do either } I 
don^t. And I believe it isn’t much use being rich, 
any way.” 

Then I told Fred my adventures. “And what 
IVe learned,” said I, “is, that you can get rich 
without much trouble, if you’re willing to wait all 
your life for forests to grow and property to rise. 
But what’s the use of money to an old man or an 
old woman that’s blind and deaf, and just ready to 
die ? Or what good does it do a mean man, with a 
lot of loafers round him ? It can’t make him a 
gentleman.” 

And meditating upon this newly-acquired philoso- 
phy, Fred and I went to our homes. 

“ Mother,” said I, “ I’ve got back.” 

“ Yes, my son, I expected you about this time.” 

“ But I haven’t found a fortune, nor brought your 
camel’s-hair shawl.” 

“ It’s just as well,” said she ; “ for I haven’t any- 
thing else that would be suitable to wear with it.” 



THE EASTER FESTIVAL. 


W ITHOUT Easter the Christian year would be 
incomplete. Joyful as we all rightly are at 
Christmas, yet that festival is only the foundation* 
stone, a beautiful arch, which, without Easter, would 
be without its keystone. The festival is as old as 
Christianity itself, and has been celebrated with curious 
customs and ceremonies all the world over. 

In the far Eastern countries it is customary at the 
present day for persons when first meeting on that 
morning to kiss each other, and while one says 
'^Surrexif/” (He is risen!) the other replies ^^Vere 
surrexit/'^ (He is risen indeed !) 

The word Easter means “rising,” and of course 
refers to the resurrection of our Saviour from the 
tomb. This act implies life, and therefore all things 
having life within themselves are considered types of 


The Easter Festival. 


this great event. For this reason flowers are used in 
profusion to decorate our churches, because the flower 
is one form of life, hidden in and bursting from the 
bud. Eggs, too, wdiich contain the young chicken 
shut up in the shell, and the chrysalis which bursts 
out into a beautiful butterfly are emblematic of the 
life shut up in the grave, soon to burst out in a new 
form. 

In the East there is always great rejoicing on the 
return of this Easter festival. Bonfires are lighted 
on the hill-tops at night, feasting and gaieties of all 
descriptions are carried on for a whole week. Super- 
stition has also created many absurd stories, and one 
belief of the ignorant people is that the sun, on rising 
Easter morning dances for joy. 

In Rome, during the reign of the Popes, and until 
six years ago, the ceremonies at the church of St. 
Peter were very imposing. The Pope was carried in 
his chair of state on men’s shoulders through the 
church ; cardinals, bishops, priests and courtiers 
attended him, clad in rich robes, and wearing costly 
jewels. The finest music was sung, and the church 
was thronged with ladies and gentlemen, foreigners 
and natives, in holiday attire. 

In olden days, in England, there were also curious 
customs, .which are now passing away. One of these 


The Easter Festival. 


was the preparation of a simnel cake. This cake is 
yet made in Shropshire, where it is said to have orig- 
inated in the following manner. An aged couple, 
living in their homestead, were visited by their son 
Simon and their daughter Nelly, at Easter. On 
arriving at the house, they found that the old folks 
had nothing wherewith to entertain them, save the 
unleavened dough left from the Lenten fast. Nelly 
proposed to bake this into cakes for the younger 
children, and while preparing it, she came across the 
remains of the Christmas plum pudding. This she 
proposed to cover over with the dough, and bake it 
hard, so that when the hard crust was bitten through, 
the rich interior would be a surprise. The cake was 
accordingly made, when Master Simon came along, 
and said it was the proper way to boil it. Nelly said 
it should be baked. Thereupon they quarreled, and 
even came to blows. Nelly threw the stool whereon 
she was sitting at Simon. Simon took the broom- 
handle to defend himself, but his sister soon got it 
away and beat him with it. Thus the quarrel went 
on, when Nelly said she would boil the cake first and 
then bake it. The compromise was accepted, and 
both set to work to build the fire. The stool and the 
broomstick were used for fuel, and some eggs, which 
had been broken in the scuffle, were used to smear 


The Easter Festival. 


over the cake, and give it a glossy appearance. The 
cooking was a great success, and every year the cake 
became more popular and was known as Simon-Nelly’s 
cake. After a while, however, only the first parts of 
their names were used, and for short it was called 
simnel cake. 

In the quaint old town of Chester, in England, 
there stood a large cross at a certain point in the road. 
To this cross, on Easter Monday, the Mayor and 
corporation of the city, and the twenty guilds estab- 
lished in the place, formerly resorted for a game of 
football. The Mayor, with his sword and mace stood 
by the cross, while the shoemakers of the city pre- 
sented him with a ball, and then the game began. 
The young women of the place, jealous of their 
rights, also assembled in another part of the city, 
near the Pepper gate, and had their little game of 
ball. One Easter, however, as they were there play- 
ing, the Mayor’s daughter was watching the game, 
when her lover rushed in and carried her off, through 
the gate, and, mounting her on his horse, eloped with 
her, while the old Mayor was engaged with the sports 
of the shoemakers. The Mayor, when he learned of 
the trick, became so angry that he ordered the Pepper 
gate to be closed forever ; and that gave rise to the 
saying, “ When the daughter is stolen, shut the Pep- 
per gate.” 


The Easter Festival. 


In parts of England the custom of “ lifting ” was 
carried to a great extent, and even yet prevails in 
some quarters. On Easter Monday the young men 
go about, carrying a chair, gaily decorated with silks 
and ribbons. Every young girl they meet is obliged 
to sit in the chair, and be lifted up three times, as high 
as the men’s arms can reach. She is then let out on 
the payment of a kiss apiece to each of the lifters. 
On the following day the women go about with chairs 
and lift the young men, who are obliged to pay a for- 
feit of a present of money to each of their lifters. It 
is said that even King Edward I. was lifted by some 
young ladies of the Court, for which he paid the 
handsome forfeit of £e^oo. 

In our own country a curious custom prevails at 
Washington. On Easter Monday the children of the 
city, each with hard-boiled eggs in their hands, assem- 
ble on the hill by the capitol, and roll them down 
the grassy banks. Those that crack or break become 
the property of those whose eggs remain sound. In 
different parts of this country, the custom of “ crack- 
ing eggs ” on that day prevails. Boys with eggs hard- 
boiled, knock together the smaller ends with their 
companions, and the egg first cracking becomes the 
spoil of the one whose egg is the hardest. 

In the shops of Paris, and lately in our own larger 
cities, are to be seen, at Easter-tide, eggs of all colors, 


The Easter Festival. 


sizes and materials. Bon-bon boxes of silk, satin, 
gold, silver and ivory are in the shape of eggs. Hard- 
boiled eggs are also beautifully covered with dyes, and 
engraved or painted. These colors are usually blue, 
the heavenly tint, purple, the color of royalty, red, the 
blood of the crucifixion, and green, typical of the 
fresh, new life. 

But these old ceremonies, customs and traditions 
are dying out, and we know and celebrate Easter 
by the singing of glad carols, and the observance 
of the festival in a more sober and becoming man- 
ner. 










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